


Half-Life: Lunar Decay

by cultrateCarnifex, Fruitloop1001



Category: HLVRAI - Fandom, Half-Life, Half-Life VR But The AI Is Self Aware
Genre: Alternate Universe - Werewolf, Blood and Gore, Body Horror, Canon-Typical Violence, Needles, No Resonance Cascade, Not A Game AU, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Tags to be added by chapter, Transformation, Unethical Experimentation
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-13
Updated: 2020-10-05
Packaged: 2021-03-03 21:34:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 7
Words: 23,517
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24692362
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cultrateCarnifex/pseuds/cultrateCarnifex, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fruitloop1001/pseuds/Fruitloop1001
Summary: In every eventuality, Gordon Freeman is trapped by forces beyond his control. Compelled to join a fray over which he will never exert any agency.But once in a wide blue moon, a window opens.Leap from your body like it is a broken thing and learn to run on all four legs.
Comments: 79
Kudos: 169





	1. Chapter 1

The commercial airliner rattled like a kicked can as it touched down on the sweltering tarmac in New Mexico. If Gordon hadn’t already been awakened by the pre-landing warnings he was sure it would have been a nasty surprise, leaving him just as discombobulated as the multitude of wailing children who raised their voices in unity. He found himself unable to keep still for long, tapping manic rhythms on the armrest or toeing at the under-rail of the seat ahead of him. This was not particularly well received by the man to Gordon’s left; an unsociable office worker who was more inclined to utter one word replies. Possessing a healthy fear of flight on a good day, Gordon suffered little guilt for his agitation.

Gordon had brought a book to keep himself occupied--several, in fact--but neglected to realize the overhead compartment would be unreachable after takeoff.

The airport was a small, regional sort. For some, it was the prison of their layover before an indulgent vacation on the Dendê coast; for others, merely the final rest before the drive back home. Gordon pushed past tired families, rubbernecking at signs for departing and arriving flights with vacant expressions. A benefit of the airport’s claustrophobic size was that he moved through it with more efficiency than he thought possible for such a bureaucratic place. His luggage was retrieved without issue and it was merely a turn of his head to spot a sign emblazoned with his name. It was held aloft by a pencil-necked man waiting in front of a black Humvee with harshly tinted windows. It did not take someone with an MIT education to realize that the U.S. military had their hands all over his pick up. Against rationale, he had hoped for a different standard from his escort to Black Mesa.

The perfect stranger gave him a flash of a smile and offered his hand.

“Dr. Freeman? It’s a pleasure. I’m Staff Sergeant Zachary Haiste.”

Sergeant Haiste was probably on a recruitment poster somewhere, Gordon mused. His crystalline blue eyes, kindly smile, and blond hair were all obviously good first impression material. The military’s best foot forward to rope in those impressionable high school dropouts. Meanwhile, they told Gordon to catch the first red eye out of Massachusetts. The rush to oblige robbed him of his planned stop at the barber and saw him make do with a man-bun using hair bands from the terminal.

“Just Gordon is fine, Sergeant. Likewise.”

“Suits me. And if you’ll pardon the formality, let me be the first to welcome you to the Black Mesa family.”

Once more Gordon felt his higher reasoning shut off as he was transferred from one air-conditioned box to another one. The drive there was going to be almost as long as the flight. At least he could crack open one of his books.

***

Black Mesa rose over the Pajarito like a dark monolith. A looming city of Babel, growing in the approach until it threatened to blot out the Los Alamos sky over them. Gordon's mouth went dry by no fault of the Humvee's climate control. A military industrial complex by both name and appearance indeed.

They passed through two separate checkpoints before he was even allowed to step out of the car. The first of which was handled by the Sergeant with little fanfare. Gordon had to sit through a playful conversation that he was entirely an outsider to for a total of five minutes. The next required more involvement. He was to relinquish his driver's licence and the paper that had gotten him so far already; his letter of congratulations from Black Mesa on his employment status. He was to retrieve them both at a later date, apparently. The facility swallowed them and Gordon was sure that he would have been encompassed by pure darkness if not for the fact that vast swaths of the facility sat open to the sky. 

Within seconds Gordon was surrounded by more military technology and people than he ever had been before. Individuals in camo, or rarer still in lab coats or civilian wear, milled about the facility like ants. They finally came to a rest outside of a warehouse, massive enough to have encompassed the apartment building Gordon lived in before. Sergeant Haiste popped the trunk and moved around to open the door for Gordon. Gordon, against his manners, was already attempting to extricate himself from the back seats. By that point, the umpteenth extended trip taken in a confined space had him resembling a live wire, raw, jacked up on coffee and too many almonds from the plane. He was looking forward to whatever a tour of this place would be like.

“Pretty intimidating, isn’t it? Don’t worry, Dr. Freeman, you’ll be considering it home before you know it.” 

Sergeant Haiste had already pulled Gordon’s bag from the trunk and was leaning against the car. He seemed amused at Gordon’s gawking.

“How large is the facility?” 

His eyes skimmed the tops of various buildings, none of their purposes patiently obvious from the outside. Dusty steel reflected back the sun. It would have been blinding if not for the wear and tear that had accumulated, dispersing the intensity to something that was almost tolerable.

“Level one? Can’t say I rightly know. Couple hundred miles at the very least.”

“I take that to imply that there’s more than one level, and that I’ll become acquainted with them during the tour.” Gordon cocked an eyebrow.

Sergeant Haiste shot him a smile that was more toothy than it strictly needed to be.

“Quick as I thought you’d be, Dr. Freeman. Ready for that tour, or should we bake outside a little bit more?”

Gordon followed Sergeant Haiste through the facility’s labyrinthian outside complex, passing in and out of several buildings with no explanation. It was just as much of a walk as he had hoped and feared. The culmination of their trek ended with a building just like the rest. The only distinguishing feature from its twins being a placard by the door. 1-13C it read, metal on darker metal. Sergeant Haiste paused when he noticed that Gordon wasn’t immediately following behind him.

“Supersiticious, Dr. Freeman? It’s not my favorite building either.”

They stepped inside and the temperature dropped at least ten degrees. The inside was an awful, blinding white. Linoleum floors, eggshell walls, and the stiflingly bland architecture reminded Gordon of a hospital. It was only missing the disinfectant bite. They plodded down a seemingly endless white stairway for some time before turning into a corridor with elevators on all sides. Sergeant Haiste thumbed at the only button available, an unlit downwards facing arrow, and turned face to make sure Gordon paid attention.

“We’ll be stopping on level eight first to drop off your things. Eight is bio, animal testing, that kind of thing.”

Sergeant Hiaste had other things to say but Gordon cut him off with a raised hand, feeling not unlike a student again.

“Black Mesa does animal testing?”

The other man sent him a longways glance.

“It’s the most comprehensive research facility in the Southwest. Of course there’s animal testing. They also do processing for new employees. The bloodwork and urinalysis they told you about, yeah? All done in house.”

Gordon frowned to himself, running a hand along his scruffy chin. The elevator dinged, buying him a little bit of time before he had to formulate a response. And of course, the eighth level was at the very bottom of the buttons.

“How long is that supposed to take? I don’t want to be living out of my suitcase for my first week of work only to have to pack it back up.”

Sergeant Haiste sighed, leaning against the once polished steel of the elevator wall. Where there was once a faithful reflection of the man now consisted of a large smudge of black and gray against the wall, muddled and indistinct.

“Three days at most, I’d reckon.”

Gordon signed and contented himself just to watch the number count up. His track record of employment could only get better. Grading papers and grabbing coffees was a majority of what he had done while employed at MIT. The research fellowship had been less than what he had hoped for, but then again he had set his bar high. The university’s post-doc programs were flush with bright-eyed graduates looking to implement what they knew. Too many, probably, and he had spilled into doing more menial work.

When the doors opened, the creeping burn of disinfectant finally reached Gordon's nose. They stepped from the elevator and he couldn't help feel but the pressure of the miles of soil above him. Black Mesa was bunkers within bunkers. White on sterile white on eggshell white.

***

Sergeant Haiste droned on as they walked through interchangeable corridors, furthering themselves into the labyrinth . His words, although well-intentioned and surely chock full of information vital to greasing the wheels of Gordon's early days at the institution, slid in one ear and out the other. He found himself too preoccupied with the perplexing building layouts to retain much of it. Someone with an inane sense of humor (or worse, none) had copy-pasted one unmarked after another. _Fire hazard_ , said the lab safety seminar demon still inside him from his undergraduate days. At least bodies populated some hallways, as they went on. Technicians in lab coats nodded polite and distracted greetings on their bustling way to stations they apparently should have been at five minutes ago. If anything, Gordon appreciated any interruption to the static humdrum of the Sergeant's exposition.  
Gordon only picked up the end of the spiel, realizing he was being directly addressed.

"Your file said no dependents, so you're slotted in the dormitories."

"File?"

"Sure. Level eight. Quarters right next to the main lab space, like every other level. It's not too much of a walk, but you'll need a keycard."

To demonstrate this, Sergeant Haiste pulled a badge from his pocket and pressed it against the blank screen of a keypad situated next to double doors. They slid open soundlessly to reveal much more livable arrangements. Straight down the hallway looked to be a comfortable break room, a tacky couch peering around the corner and a show droning from a hidden TV. To the left and right of Gordon were shut doors with names embossed at eye level. Some even had newspaper clippings or thesis papers tacked up besides the doors. Splashes of color added to an otherwise barren interior.

Sergeant Haiste led him down the hall, which split into an intersection. They took a right and kept walking until the names on the door became sparser. Finally, they stopped. It seemed as if Gordon wouldn’t have neighbors on either side, nor across. He wasn’t sure if he should look a gift horse in the mouth for the sake of being polite to his future coworkers, or enjoy his solitude. The door slid open with a tap of Sergeant Zachary’s badge.

His first impression was that of the sterile apartments at MIT's Baker House after vacating freshmen picked things clean. The word dormitory had been rather apt in the sparseness of his furniture arrangements. Cluttered against the back left corner, furthest from the door, was a twin sized bed. White and navy bed sheets rested in a folded pile atop of the mattress. In addition, two undressed pillows sat where a headboard should have been. Unfortunately, that was the most interesting thing in the room. In addition there was a utilitarian dresser opposite to it. Across from that was a wooden desk and chair huddled in the corner. Two notebooks and a collection of pens were settled on top. Finally, there was a door across from the bed. It had been left open just enough for Gordon to identify it as his own private bathroom.

Gordon stepped inside. The room, his room, smelled faintly of the same antiseptic bite that the rest of the level eight facility had. Perhaps they used the same cleaning chemicals, or maybe it just permeated every aspect of this level. He set his carryon luggage on top of the dresser and wheeled his other luggage to lean against it. That was it. The entirety of his life, packed into the contents of two bags. 

Sergeant Haiste must have picked up on his gloom since he broke the silence.

“Need a moment, Dr. Freeman?”

Gordon took a moment to slot the jigsaw of his current mindset back into place. It wasn’t much, but he was being paid enough to deal with it. They were free accommodations.

“No, I’m okay. Thanks.”

Sergeant Haiste gave him the moment anyway, just a second to catch his breath. A lot had already happened today and Gordon just needed a minute to process it all. They stepped out of the room one after another once Gordon had collected himself enough to realize that he was holding the process up. Sergeant Haiste likely had other things to do than shepard a new recruit around all day. Or watch that new recruit have a breakdown in real time. Gordin managed to be amazing at first impressions like that.

By the time they made it to the elevator the silence cast a pall over the entire event. Sergeant Haiste attempted no unnecessary conversation, watching Gordon with a lax attitude. The elevator doors closed and the Sergeant pressed the button for the floor above them.

“Level seven is human sciences. Basically, anthropology. For the liberal arts types."

Derision dripped from his words. It didn’t seem as if he put much stock into the softer sciences.

When the doors opened the difference was stark. Eight had been everything that pop culture believed about scientific laboratories. Seven less so. The white walls and polished linoleum was a foreign concept to this room of soft green and blue. Green mosaic tile, a homage to some ancient civilization that Gordon had slept through a course about. The pattern drew him in with its fractal-like expanse, so he pulled his eyes away before it became a problem. The walls remained scuffed in some places, needing a new coat of that sky blue paint. Eight’s walls had been bereft of any form of personality, but paintings decorated this level. Copies of classics. Or, at least, Gordon assumed they were copies. Replicas of Greek vases, plates, and a variety of other historical memorabilia dotted the room. The cluttered, lived-in feel reminded Gordon of local museums. Displaying whatever they had on hand for a public that visited so rarely. He spoke with muted awe at the collection around them, breaking up the sound of his hesitant tread.

"One focus for every floor? I didn't realize anthropology paid like that."

Sergeant Haiste shook his head, standing in the doorway of the elevator so it wouldn’t close.

"What can I say? The suits put bodies where they want them. Not our beat, doctor."

The tour of level seven, and all the floors above that, blended into a miasma of colors and information. Level six was a specialized neurology floor, somehow different from level eight in ways that he didn’t bother to internalize. Level five was military ballistics and weapons research, which meant that the tour was even shorter than all the ones before. Just a peek inside and then they moved on. Level four functioned as the other half of the physics labs and focused primarily on non-organic chemistry. Level three, the level that he would be working and living on for the rest of his time there, equally as unmemorable as the rest. It was all hallways, offices, and research rooms he currently didn’t have the clearance to enter. The only thing of even mild interest was level two: the commons and civilian parking.

For those that lived off site--something that Gordon was starting to become jealous of--there was an underground complex for their commute and parking needs. It connected to a canteen that put any student cafeteria to shame. Not out of aesthetic, of course. Like everything else Gordon was finding in Black Mesa, the tables and chairs were metal and utilitarian. Only as comfortable as they needed to be. Self-perpetuating lines of employees filed into various stations around the room, waiting for their turn at the rotating menu. Conversation thrummed at a low roar, no louder than the ventilation.

Jutting off from the sides like holes punched into the earth were various suites. A repurposed game room, with a foosball table collecting dust not far from an equally derelict pool table. Another looked like a coffee bar from the 90s. Smatterings of people milled about in each, enjoying their food in relative solitude.

Sergeant broke from his humble explanation once the tour was complete, glancing around the food that was being offered for the day.

“Your badge and anything else you need should be delivered to your room by suppertime. Just pick whatever and I’ll meet you in side room two.”

***

Back in his designated quarters, Gordon laid on the overly firm mattress. His eyes were cast upwards at the reinforced concrete of his ceiling. He wondered how many inches of his room had been lost to efforts of repainting after a tenant moved out. The faux-popcorn design made him think that the number was likely significant. Sergeant Haiste said that he’d be reporting to the lab the next morning for bloodwork and whatever else Black Mesa needed from him.

At no short lag past one in the afternoon Gordon was escorted back to his room with the crystal clear commands to get some rest before his big day tomorrow. Sleep was a lucrative beast to capture even at a reasonable time. Gordon had no delusions that he’d be able to settle in for a nap. He supposed he could explore a little more of the facility on his own. See how far the keycard and white lab coat left on his bed would take him. It was a lovely lab coat, by his standards. Swooping cursive embroidered the breast pocket. _Dr. Gordon Freeman._ The material reminded him of treated denim. It didn’t weigh him down when he had tried it on for the bathroom mirror. The badge was a similar mystery. It weighed heavily in his hand, as if made of metal, but met all his requirements for being a regular plastic keycard. It bent in his hands with enough force and didn’t hurt when he gave it an experimental bite. Gordon figured that there was no harm in allowing the mystery of his standard issue materials to remain a mystery, strange though he found it. 

To his infinite surprise Gordon managed to catch some in the interim before dinner. A lack of entertainment and a surplus of jet lag would have broken even the most steadfast of insomniac streaks. Not that Gordon could replicate the experiment. He awoke, heavy of limb, dry of mouth, at a disorienting six in the afternoon. His growling stomach had been the thing to wake him up, ravenous from the light lunch he picked over. Only one place to go. Back up.

On the way to the elevator he had seen no one. It was likely that he had missed the initial lunch crowd and was in a lull between high usage times. Making it more likely still, the elevator took its time getting down to him. When it finally arrived on his level he stepped into the back corner after pressing the button for level two. It came as something of an unwelcome surprise when the elevator paused on the level just above his, then opened the doors to reveal another perfect stranger. This one came in the form of a somewhat older looking man, perhaps in his mid-thirties. His hair was black and shortly cropped. A palette of faded, inorganic colors stained his lab coat. As if a toddler had spilled their water-color set all over him. There was a youthful air to the way he stepped inside, looking over Gordon in the sort of eager way one might attribute to a dog.

“I haven’t met you before! Hello, my name is Tommy.”

Tommy’s voice had a surprisingly nasally, high pitched quality to it that left Gordon momentarily floundering to return the social nicety.

“Uh, yes, it’s my first day here. I’m Gordon.”

“It’s nice to meet you, Mr. Freeman. Is biology your department?”

While Tommy was able to read his name tag, the wear and tear on Tommy’s coat had left it somewhat illegible. 

“No, actually. I’m just getting my bloodwork done and then I’ll be up to level three with anomalous materials.”

He watched the way Tommy’s eyebrows drew together. The slight tilt of his head. Tommy didn’t say anything so Gordon filled the silence as the elevator continued its upwards march.

“I imagine that you’re anthropology, right?”

The direct question seemed to thaw off whatever confusion that had settled over Tommy and he was right back to smiling. He shook his head.

“My office is there, but I actually do a little bit of everything!”

Gordon’s confusion must have shown on his face because Tommy plowed right on ahead.

“I’m not really um, specialized in anything. I just read a lot of books.”

The elevator’s doors slid open and saved Gordon a few precious moments to think. He wasn’t really sure what to say to something like that. The two of them stepped out into the hallway leading towards the canteen and Gordon ventured one last line of questioning before the raucous din nearly swallowed their conversation.

“So where are you from, Tommy?”

Tommy, who had been looking around the hallway and up ahead like it was just as new to him as it was to Gordon, glanced back over to him to flash a smile.

“Right here, Mr. Freeman!”

“Oh, so the Los Alamos area or New Mexico?”

“Just here.”

Gordon wasn’t able to get any clearer answer of where ‘here’ was as Tommy began to stray from Gordon’s side. Hunger was a demanding mistress and Tommy didn’t really seem to have all that much of an attention span in the first place. Gordon got a ‘see you later, Mr. Freeman’ before he’s left standing on his own again in the middle of the canteen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you don't see another chapter before next week just know my beta reader Carnifex is holding my writing hostage.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The ball begins to roll.

The next three days blended together into a dull montage punctuated by instances of deep and unresolved confusion. Gordon's first official day at Black Mesa involved needles and no shortage of them. The biology department was thorough in its extraction of every manner of fluid. Faceless attendants drew blood and stuck cotton swabs in a few places swabs shouldn't go. Gordon had scarcely felt more invaded. His attempts to suss out any information had shattered against one word replies, or worse, deafening silence. He tried to start up amicable small talk, if only to distract himself from the light-headedness of blood drawing. Needles had always made him queasy, but they had never managed to corner him as a pack before. Gordon still remembered the shame of avoiding the blood donation trucks that hovered around the MIT Stata Center like buzzards during orientation season. He had questioned what Black Mesa needed with the sheer amount of data they had on him now. Neither approach yielded as much as he had hoped.

Tommy, who seemed to materialize at the same time as yesterday, proved no more help in elucidating what was going on. Questions bounced off of him with the kind of novelty confusion that Gordon found wore his patience thin. Tommy reassured him that such invasive levels of testing were OSHA approved, commonplace in their line of work; yet his pauses for thought failed to convince Gordon, who returned to his bed dreading what the next day had in store.

Day Two was exercise-based data gathering, with which Gordon saw his every fear justified. He wasn’t as out of shape as some of his professors and fellow students had been, but the tests still wiped the floor with him. Gordon struggled to remember his last real strenuous exercise and inwardly panicked when the most recent instance he could think of was freshman soccer, which hadn't lasted long. They told him to run; he ran. They told him to keep going and so he did. When the technicians jabbed him with questions while he struggled for breath, he answered. He may as well not have, considering the trivial information ultimately doled out. Not as trivial were the unsettling long silences to follow each question. Under a sweat-tipped brow Gordon watched the men in white coats confer, debate, and repeat.

Tommy, once more, had been no more of a help than the day previous. The ditzy, stumbling way in which he seemed to go about the conversation--if not his entire life--had Gordon wondering if some employees skipped the vetting regiment.

"It's- It's all standard stuff, Mr. Freeman."

He too, however, never seemed to be able to produce exact answers about the nature of the testing.

"I'm sure the biology department needs your saliva for some kind of experiment, Mr. Freeman! They're always requiring different kinds of fluid samples."

Doubt curled into a tight ball in his gut. It was only tempered by the knowledge that his placement was temporary.

The third day had more of a frantic energy that he could almost taste. It was like breathing in the ozone after a lightning strike. For once, he stepped into a testing room that was alive with the animated chatter of the biology scientists. They weren’t keen on giving him clear answers, of course, but he could pick up things between his tests. The tests, which felt arguably pseudoscientific, focused on his mental fitness.

Between the IQ and reflex tests, he was subject to a barrage of personality tests. Scientists flourished ink blots and he interpreted what the mess of black on the page looked like to him. He wasn’t sure that modern psychology used outdated methods like ink blot. Or that Myers-Briggs could tell them anything about him that he didn’t already know. The longer it went on the more that Gordon felt that they were wasting his time.

Gordon received the first tidbit of actual information at the end of that day; this was the last round of data gathering. He was to transfer the next day to level three’s anomalous materials lab and finally earn his paycheck. Only that he would be required to assist with an experiment later that day. It would be a simple thing to contact him when the experiment started so he could go about business as usual.

The neurotic breakdown that the biology department was close to experiencing wasn’t a localized event. The entire facility, from what he saw, seemed more on edge than any of the days previously.

Whatever it was had even reached Tommy. Questions fell flat with less tact than usual. Tommy refused to make eye contact as they spoke, even momentarily. Their already brief conversation came to close well before reaching their mutual destination. Tommy mentioned he had a lot on his mind and allowed the conversation to wither and die there. Gordon went to bed fretting, having absorbed the foot-tapping of his colleagues. It worried him that he hadn't yet assisted with the project before bed. Black Mesa ran at all hours, he knew, but his schedule was a regular nine to five. He did his best not to dwell on it, hoping that it wouldn’t impact his transfer the next day.

*** 

Sleep slipped out from under him like a rug when the crackle of an intercom echoed in his room. An intercom he hadn't known was there, nonetheless. The words came out slow and grating from a synthetic masculine voice.

“Gordon. Freeman. Report. To. Lab. Eighteen. For. Assignment.”

He wheezed with surprise as it repeated once more. Gordon hoped it hadn’t been repeating for some time and he hadn’t only woken up before they were about to give up on him. It was still early enough that they could terminate his employment. Gordon retrieved the clothes he had worn that day, returned his hair to its ponytail position, and slipped on his lab coat as he slid out the door.

Only the red hazard lights embedded into the floor remained on, casting oppressive beams along the hallway that stretched his shadow wisp thin along the wall. He had never been to Lab 18 and played it by ear, moving through the deserted corridors at a half jog. Whatever time they had woken him up was not a populated one. Echos of noise came from random hallways, indiscernible by the time they reached him. As it turned out the lab sat tucked away into a back corner. It turned into a haven of noise as he tapped his keycard to reveal over a dozen people. Few looked away from the conversations they were already having, but an older scientist greeted him. A Dr. Walton. Gordon recognized him as one of his colleagues from the biology lab. The man usually in charge of dishing out what little information Gordon was privy to. He was an older man with a reedy, arrogant voice that reminded Gordon of his days back at community college. When he was yet unproven.

“Ah, Dr. Freeman. I had begun to worry that you had gotten lost.”

His tone was not unkind but there was a hint of chastisement that had him blubbering out excuses anyway. Excuses that were quickly cut off.

“No time for that. We’re behind schedule already. I’ll brief you on the way up.”

Dr. Walton pushed through the throng of other scientists, moving to the back of the room without another word. Gordon’s harried footsteps followed quickly behind as he muttered apologies to each person he bumped into. An elevator sat inauspicious opposite to the door he had come in through. It stood open as Dr. Walton held the door. He pushed inside.

The interior of the elevator looked new. Newer than any he had used on site before. Not a single scratch marred the reflective surfaces and only a few smudges appeared where someone had missed a button. Which were unusual as well. Instead of the usual assortment going from one to eight, it only had three options: one, eight, and a ninth level that required a key to access. Gordon didn’t have the chance to ask as the button for the first floor lit up and Dr. Walton started his briefing.

“Apologies for all the hush hush Dr. Freeman, but this project came in as a rush job. Your arrival was the fortuitous wind we needed to start.”

Gordon opened his mouth to ask how he fit in with any of this, but shut up as Dr. Walton leveled him with a glare.

“Your work with ELW Transuranic Crystals has shown that, theoretically, matter can move from a distance with the correct array of crystals. Black Mesa’s research into a similar vein of metamaterials has shown that twinned metamaterial crystals can transmit frequencies between each other instantaneously and with no loss of energy. Pioneering tests have shown similar effects for the transference of energy. Instantaneous. Perfect efficiency.”

Dr. Walton’s words had taken on something of a manic edge and Gordon was at a loss for words. He wasn’t sure what he was actually going to do, yet he already knew it was out of his wheelhouse. Of course if it was theoretically possible to teleport material it would be as possible, and much more achievable to do so with simple electrons. The induction of energy in the form of electricity was well demonstrated but outside of his purview.

All this was being laid out to him as if he already was an expert on the subject. Teleportation of matter was more complicated than energy transference, but he wasn't an electrical engineer. Nor had he ever implemented his research in the field.

The doors to the first level opened up and Gordon saw his first Black Mesa night. The heat mirage off of metal melted into a humid and heady atmosphere. It reminded him of breathing after a Seattle rainstorm. Every inhale was cold and crisp. The night air was refreshing after so much time breathing the recycled fumes of the facility. Stepping out, Gordon realized that they were no longer within the confines of the Black Mesa complex. Ahead lay a squat building similar to a hangar. Multiple megawatt floodlights doused the building, casting shadows at jagged awkward angles. A variety of scientists in their pristine lab coats milled about on the outside of it. They stood out like maggots against the reds and browns of the desert, dark as rotten meat. The mesas rose around them like an earthen ribcage, claustrophobic and haunting.

He moved forward with Dr. Walton’s continued advancement, a no-nonsense pace towards the building.

“You’ll be checking the calibration of the machinery sustaining the resonance crystals."

Gordon trotted for a moment to catch up with him and kept up the brisk pace as they closed the distance.

“Transuranic Crystals are highly irradiated. What’s the protocol for that? I have no HEV training.” 

Dr. Walton shook his head.

“The resonance amplifiers should take care of that. If not, you’re being supplied with a preliminary shot of diethylenetriamine pentaacetic acid.” 

Questions swam in the nausea that made up Gordon’s gut. That didn’t seem like enough safety precautions. Metamaterials bled radiation enough for another Hiroshima. They were beginning to draw in close enough to pick up on bits of shushed conversation. Scattered dialogue that he couldn’t distinguish without context. Something about periapsis. A 72 hour volatility benchmark. Containment measures in the case of cataclysmic failure. He didn’t like the sound of that last bit. 

The distance they crossed seemed painfully short. A soldier accosted Dr. Walton before they had even reached the door. The multitude of medals pinned to his chest caught and threw the light in a dizzying array. They had a clipped conversation Gordon could barely follow, not from lack of trying. It was as if they were speaking in one-word code. An orange case, no wider than his palm, swapped hands to Dr. Walton. Dr. Walton turned his back to the soldier, facing Gordon.

“If you wouldn’t mind, Dr. Freeman.”

The words floated in Gordon’s mind for a moment, sounds without meaning. He was a moment away from stuttering out an embarrassed plea for clarification when it clicked. Right. Of course. The radiation sickness medication. Gordon nodded once and shrugged off the left side of his lab coat to reveal his work shirt underneath. Gooseflesh followed his sleeve as he rolled it up past his elbow. Dr. Walton, for his part, was an efficient man. An alcohol prep wipe roughly scraped over the inside of his elbow before disappearing from whence it came. The case opened to reveal a syringe. The needle was thicker than he had ever experienced at routine doctor visits. The clear liquid inside told no story and had no defining features. For a moment he could almost convince himself he was going in for his seasonal flu shot. That was until the needle drove home. Cold liquid pumped into his veins, leaving a trail of numbness where it went. After a moment he could feel the needle leave his arm. He counted time only through his heartbeats. Through the puffs of his breath. Gordon was not much of a fan of doctor’s visits. A circular bandage stemmed the rivulets of blood that had begun to flow, applied in a perfunctory manner.   
“If you’re quite ready, Dr. Freeman,” an impatient Dr. Walton intoned.

The world expanded from his view of red already showing through the back of the bandage. He cleared his throat, mouth feeling dry despite the humidity. Gordon pulled the lab coat back over his frame but left the shirt sleeve rolled up.

“Of course.” He nodded, mostly to himself.

The short span separating them from the hangar disappeared under their rapid pace. Dr. Walton leaned down to an innocuous panel on the left side of the massive doors, the only outstanding feature on an otherwise metallic lump. It beeped once and the world shook in front of them. The doors pulled apart like the maw of a creature. Fluorescent light hailed down onto polished steel, lighting the inside as well as it was lit from the outside. Gordon stepped inside and shielded his eyes from the intensity. No expense spared on the electricity bill. The doors rumbled closed behind him. Dr. Walton was ascending a staircase steeply running up the right wall that led into a viewing room.

On the ground floor, situated across from one another and no more than twenty feet apart, were two golden-orange crystals. They were mirror images of each other; suspended atop machines that Gordon was hopelessly lost just looking at. Each encased in a thick sheet of glass that he hoped was enough to keep him from puking his literal guts out from radiation poisoning. He took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. This was what they hired him for after all.

Gordon forced himself to walk towards the left of the two machines, gritting his teeth as a headache started up. He figured it was due to the intensity of the lighting he was being exposed to but the cold sensation from the injection hadn’t gone away. It had continued to spread throughout his entire body and warp into a low burning sensation. He hoped to God or anyone that would listen that he wasn’t allergic. Despite his glasses, Gordon had to squint to make sense of the data readings. His vision was starting to blur at the edges. 

He opened his mouth to speak, to warn that he was having side effects to the drug they had given him, when everything went dark. Every light in the hangar flicked off and once more the world around him shuddered as the roof of the building opened to the night sky. The moon shone down over the contents of the hangar, wrapping over his shoulders like a blanket. He could hear himself panting. Feel his heartbeat like a trapped bird thrashing inside of his chest.

“What the hell is going on?”

No answer came.

“Hello?” He tried again, straining to keep focused.

On either side of him the crystals let out a low buzzing noise like the drone of a swarming insect. They were charging, he realized. Powered. His legs felt rooted to the spot even as his mind screamed at him to run. To cower into a corner and pray that his atoms didn’t scatter into the wind. Gordon opened his mouth to scream when the world turned neon green and realized he couldn't.

A searing pain, as a baseball bat had cracked him over the head, forced its way into his spine. It morphed into a migraine in record time. It felt as if the entirety of the world was beginning to collapse on him. 

Bones, muscles, nerves. 

Fire crawled along his limbs, squirming and boiling beneath the skin. His writhing, baking skin, which peeled and cracked like egg seared on pavement.

Pain warped all sense of time. Each moment stretched to eternity as all sense of Newtonian physics left his body. The bright blur of his vision squashed itself down to one pulsing line as each nerve in his body finally found its voice and screamed.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A transformation in two parts.

Self preservation won out, in the end. His brain shut down with every new surge of pain, losing precious moments and divorcing him further from reality. The world happened to him, in intervals. Pain rose up in waves, threatening to drown him if he couldn’t hold his breath. He could only catch his breath and wait for the next thing to drag him down. His bones snapping into new, deformed shapes became his reality. His clothes, stretching to his new shape before they gave up the ghost. His nails hardened and expanded.

The world outside of his own torment existed only when it exerted itself upon him. He did not pant louder than the scientists spoke; their words foreign when joined in rapturous unison. The fur that adorned his arm did not keep the cool of metal out when they applied it around his wrist. The fur that had required his skin to split and fire to race in his veins. Their lights shined into his rolling eyes.

Piecemeal, through great effort, Gordon began to come back to himself. No longer were the waves of pain high enough to crush him with each cycle. Conscious thought clawed back from the reclusive place it had been hiding. He could catalog the changes to his body as they caught his attention. The scientists around him were doing the same. Their instruments, both blunt and sharp, took pieces from him. Gordon wasn’t sure how much he had to give. 

A set of footsteps caught his attention. Black leather shoes gave way to navy slacks. The sure and even way with which they approached him was like a metronome. This made it easier to focus his eyes. To see past the leather muzzle that was biting into him. Soundlessly, aside from the whisper of fabric against fabric, the man knelt down in front of Gordon. He was inhuman, pale, and gaunt as if starvation had set in.

"I apologize for what you must consider inexplicable circumstances, Dr. Freeman. I am afraid your position within this institution has been restructured."

The man’s voice matched his appearance. Awkward pauses paused his sentences and there was a slight warble as if the words suffered as they came out. And yet he continued.

"At this point, Dr. Freeman, you must be wondering: Why me? It is not inconceivable that a kernel of unremarkable ore should wonder the same as fate compounds it into a brilliant diamond. As it happens you have a great many uses, Dr. Freeman. Theoretical physics would be an utter waste of your singular resource."

More footsteps approached. Multiple people. An unknowable number. These lacked the coordination of the man before him. Yet Gordon felt unable to move his eyes from the man in front of him.

"I will not pretend that this will be of any consolation to you, but know that you were selected, doctor. Hand-picked, you might say."

His limbs moved of their own volition as the crowd that surrounded him manipulated his constraints. Arms and legs shifted to close positions, splayed limbs tucked against the trunk of his body. 

"Worry not, Dr. Freeman. In seventy-one hours and forty-two minutes, you will feel like a new man."

A needle pierced his neck and the voice repeated itself ad nauseum as the world faded into monochrome sepia.

***

When Gordon next opened his eyes he was not surprised to find himself in a new place. A figure leaned against the cross hatched bars that made up his cage. Details beyond the most obvious were impossible to tell. Whoever it was took advantage of their back being to the blinding screens of the wall facing his cage. Their blue lighting burned Gordon’s retina’s with their sheer unwavering intensity. Gordon could only make out their outline. Taller than himself, but not by much. They wore the familiar black and blue of the security officers.

“He means you’ll be dead.”

The man spoke. His rough monotone gave nothing away and Gordon gaped for context, unable to speak.

“Beddy-bye for ol’ Gordon Freeman.”

Gordon closed his eyes and the headache that had been forming thanked him for the small reprieve. He breathed deep, attempting to calm himself. When his senses started to return to him he opened his eyes. A question of who or what died on his lips when he saw the man was no longer there. Gone as quick as he had appeared. The lack of intrusion gave Gordon time to inspect his new surroundings.

Synthetic blue lights spilled through the bars that made up his prison. The sources of the light were almost impossible to discern aside from shapes of the screens that they came from. The bars themselves were solid metal. The spacing was wide enough apart that he could shove himself up to the shoulder through it. If he wanted to, he could poke his head through. It was all meant for something much larger than him. Hugging the left wall there was a solid metal door made up of two parts. Its shadow loomed over him, three times the size of his frame. The bottom seemed to be able to move independent from the top, as if something could slide through. 

Gordon had a lot of time to explore the confines of his new enclosure. The walls of his enclosure became blurrier the closer he came to them; a symptom of his nearsightedness. No visitors. No way to measure how much time had passed between when he had first awoken and to then. Just the rhythmic, steady lope of bare feet against the cold concrete. The way he paced his confines reminded him of the only time he had gone to a legitimate circus. Tigers and lions pressed themselves against the bars of their cages, much like he was, and walked in lazy circles. He wondered with a moment of sanity-breaking dread if Black Mesa was the kind of facility to hide a human zoo underneath. But that didn’t make any sense. None of what had happened made any sense to him. The brief moments of his conscious thought repeated over and over, trying to find where he fucked up. 

Once more, time yawned before him, an infinite and unknowable vastness. He lost time to the moments of sleep that came to him but he was never sure how much. The difference between a minute and an hour was already lost to him. He knew that he was hungry and only getting hungrier.

Reprieve came in the clattering of a cart rolling down the hall. The smell of cooked meats and oil-fried foods caused him to salivate. It was a damning natural response, one that Gordon wasn’t pleased to see on display. A bellhop rolled into view followed by a very familiar figure.

Tommy mumbled to himself for a moment, lost in thought. Then the world became blinding. The artificial overhead lights flicked on all at once and Gordon cowered like a whelp from his place underneath them. Adjusting to the light happened again in increments. It reminded him too much of- of whatever had happened outside of Black Mesa. If he wasn’t sitting already he was sure he would’ve crumpled to his knees. 

“Hi Mr. Freeman.”

Tommy’s smile had that same nervous quality to it as the last time Gordon had seen it. He spoke with a kind of self-consciousness that he didn’t perform.

“I didn’t realize that you’d be the experiment.”

Gordon pulled together the scraps of his confidence and stared down Tommy. He wasn’t practiced at ordering people around.

“Tommy. Let me out.”

The man flinched under his gaze, fiddling with the lid of the dish he had presented. Nails skittering over metal.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Freeman. I can’t. My dad would get really angry.”

Tommy refused to meet his eyes, wringing his hands. Gordon never received an answer but the mystery of what Tommy had been hauling around didn't last long. The bottom latch of the monolith that severed as the door to his cage opened with a click of a lock he wasn’t privy to. Tommy lifted it with no small show of strength. Gordon figured that if he pressed himself flat against the floor he could wiggle through the slot that was being used to pass food and water to him. Of course, it was only opened for the fraction of a second that Tommy needed to shove a dinner plate through.

It was a battle of constitution that Gordon wasn’t going to win. Before long the pangs of his hunger drew him up from his sitting position. His movements felt stiff. Perhaps he waited longer than he thought. A large dinner plate of steak, mashed potatoes, asparagus, and a cup of water sat innocuous in the shadow of the door. Too large to fit through the bars of his cage. A prepackaged set of plastic utensils and a napkin sat on top, wet with condensation and oil. How thoughtful.

Gordon brought the plate back to the spot he had been sitting. He could feel Tommy’s eyes on him as he broke the packaging and stabbed the steak with the knife. It felt like baby’s first woodworking project as he sawed off parts of his rare steak. They knew everything from his birthday to his blood type yet didn’t know how he liked his steaks. Interesting.

Gordon ate with a mechanical precision. Cut, chew, swallow. The food tasted like ash on his tongue. It went down only with the assistance of the water, hard and immovable in his throat. Tommy stayed the entire time to watch him eat. It may have been his persistence that made the process as difficult as it was. 

“If you’re- if you’re still hungry there’s more. I just need the plate back.”

Gordon realized that, yes, he was still hungry. His appetite weaseled its way through the obstacle course of his surroundings. His general distaste for eating around other people and the unwelcoming atmosphere did little to encourage an appetite. It came out the other side battered, but whole. Tommy startled a little when Gordon stood again, making his way back over to the door. He didn’t step back and watched the process of the exchange. If he had wanted to, Gordon mused, he could grab Tommy by the hand as he slid things under and trapped the other man inside with him. Gordon wasn’t quite that spiteful yet. Or desperate. Yet the fact that the option appeared to him felt indicative.

The next platter was some kind of thick stew. Mushroom and chunks of browned meat floated in a gravy. This also came with a cup of water, which he was grateful for. As he settled back into what he was deeming to be his spot, he once more tried to open up conversation.

“Are you supposed to be my handler now?”

Tommy mulled over the question for a moment before shaking his head.

“You’re not a dog, Mr. Freeman,” he chastised. “This is my job! I take care of all the experiments down here.”

“Experiments?”

“Dr. Coomer and Dr. Bubby live down here! Benry too but I think that’s by choice since he’s not really an experiment.”

Gordon stirred the contents of the already lukewarm stew, processing the information. He wasn’t alone down here. He wasn’t the first.

Tommy broke the morose silence, shifting where he stood.

“Maybe you’ll be able to see them. Project Lycaon has been in the works for a while a now and they were kind of looking forward to another member of the Science Team.”

Gordon maintained his silence and drained the rest of the bowl with a few gulps. For a few moments he held the bowl, drinking in the remaining heat it radiated. He opened his mouth to speak once more but paused. His mouth had become dry. A pressure in his throat appeared, at first ignorable, until he now couldn’t inhale properly. He reached up to his throat, his mouth hanging open as little rasping noises escaped instead of words.

This did not escape Tommy’s notice and Gordon heard as he stepped up to the bars separating them. Heard the dull thud of metal against flesh as Tommy leaned in to look.

“Mister Freeman? Are you okay?” 

Gordon couldn’t breathe. He choked on something that wasn’t there. Felt the pins and needles of his throat as it fought against him. Black spots danced in his vision, all too much of a reminder of the last time he had passed out. The panic gave him a boost of adrenaline. Enough that he could push himself to his feet. Tommy was shouting something indistinguishable. Nothing existed outside the bubble of Gordon’s panic. All sensation that tried to nudge through the barrier came through eviscerated for its efforts. Except pain. A now familiar form of pain.

Wheezing, Gordon brought his hand up to his eyes. A spasm of pain rocked through the nerves there as he watched, transfixed and befuddled, as the muscles squirmed of their own volition. His nails turned black, thickened, and curved into wicked claws. Another jolt of pain, this time coming from his calf, forced him down onto his knees. All he could do was gasp against the onslaught. Breathe easier than he had been before, ragged panting. He turned back to look at his own feet. Auburn fur obfuscated the left leg but he could see a hint of claw where his toes should be. Black paw padding where his sole should have been. Digitigrade. The bones on his right were quick to follow. His heel crunched with a noise he felt as well as heard and he watched his foot bend at an unsavory angle.

Gordon looked away before the horror of his own transformation caused him to vomit up what food he had managed to stomach.

Tommy had disappeared. In his place was a smattering of scientists, flanked on either side by a small collection of military personnel. They spoke amongst and over each other to create an ocean of noise. One that Gordon could find himself drowning in if he focused too hard. He grasped whatever words came to him. Scopolamine. Anaphylaxis. Testing, always more testing. Combat readiness.

Gordon growled low in his throat. It resonated in his chest to create a noise he hadn’t been expecting to make. Something fearsome. Predatory. Another snarl, this time showing off the disjointed arrangement of human and animal teeth. He couldn’t imagine the way he looked to the scientists, but he could feel as his jaws expanded into a wider muzzle. Teeth that hadn’t been there previously erupted from his bleeding gums, sharp and pink in the light.

His ears flicked forward to relish in the fearful noises of his captors as they backed away from his containment. Gordon pushed himself to his feet. It was a precarious thing to stand on his toes when all he had ever known was heel to toe. A bit of staggering--like a drunkard in action--and he found his balance.

 _Is this what you wanted?_ Words did not come from his new throat. What he had intended to say came out grated and incomprehensible. A barking mockery of English. Instead, he would show them. Balancing low, Gordon used his new claws to propel himself forward against the bars of his cage. A four legged leap where the impact left him momentarily stunned. Yet the results were satisfying enough. The people in front of him cringed back in a rearing tidal wave of fear-sweat and twitchy trigger fingers. One of the guards had pulled out his weapon.

To every action its inverse.

The dart hit him squarely in the neck and the shock of its impact dulled his reflexes. Gordon couldn’t pull it out before it delivered its payload. By stages he felt the narcotics enter his body. Sensations in his limbs dulled, the reflexes shot. He moved to retreat and found his legs unwilling to hold his weight. Gordon tumbled to the ground in a mess of limbs. He continued to snarl, a low rasping thing that began to peter out as darkness took its hold. The scientists watched his descent with the fascination of children gawping at a zoo exhibit, and Gordon felt something vengeful twist in his gut.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Combat testing.

The setting sun painted the clouds above Gordon with deep oranges and reds. From his place beneath them it almost seemed as if waves of lava smothered the sky. Once more he found himself in that place between the mesas, the world blocked out by their sheer magnitude. An observatory jutted out of the cliffside: a glass structure that dug deep into the peach-colored rocks and housed a number of individuals flitting from hazy viewing port to polymer viewscreen. It hovered fifteen or more feet above the ground, far too high for Gordon to reach even at a lunge. That didn’t mean he didn’t think about trying. The fluorescent backlighting obscured a majority of details, but the white of their spotless lab coats he couldn’t ignore, even with eyes that he couldn’t be sure were his. More benign details of the observatory fell to the wayside as Gordon identified one of his captors: Dr. Walton. Apparently being the false shepherd to the supposed next step of Gordon’s career was not enough for the man. As to the busybodies that accompanied him, Gordon couldn’t say. White splotches hugging clipboards to their chests, inaudible and insignificant in the background of his overseers.

Behind him, a flat wall of metal with an automated door of some kind punched in the middle. It rose almost to the heights of the mesa themselves and answered the question of how he had gotten there. Ahead was more uncertain. Beyond the towering of yet another sheer wall of metal were buildings. Gordon could see them rise far into the distance. Apartment buildings stood like monoliths against the skyline, the details lost from both distance and the sun’s gradual descent.

Wakefulness hadn’t settled long in Gordon before he took in the entirety of his surroundings and pulled himself up to his feet. His claws left deep marks in the rocky soil between the mesas. This time his transformation had followed through unconsciousness and out the other side. 

He had little more time to note that his fur color hadn’t strayed much from his human counterpart’s baseline. A dark, brownish auburn that didn’t stand out much against what he knew of actual wolves. Patches of his stomach and limbs turned a sandier shade with the dirt that had gathered there. However long he had been laying there was enough that dirt gathered in his fur, stubborn and clumping. The reflective surface of the metal encasing him worked as a mirror.

He retained the green of his irises but little else of his previous appearance remained. A wide, flat muzzle protruded from his face with a row of gleaming teeth. His ears reminded him more of a bat with their long and tapered appearance. Finally, a thick tail. Almost long enough to drag in the soil. 

In totality, a monster. What one would conjure up when the word werewolf came to mind. Unrecognizable as a human aside from his bipedal gait. 

Gordon’s self-reflective period came to an end. From that observatory over his head came a voice. The even and confident tone of Dr. Walton registered over some hidden intercom.

“Project Code Name: _Lycaon_. Phase Upsilon. Fifty-nine hours, twenty-two minutes to perigee. Unit test one. Preservation.” 

The door opposite to him, the one leading to the unnamed city, opened with a deafening rumble. Metal slid up into metal to reveal a glimpse of what was past it. Old buildings, vines on brickwork, and a monster. The idea of what was and wasn’t a monster had changed. The experiences of the past day or so made sure of that, but Gordon would not hesitate to call this a monster.

It was a human, as he had been, before… Gordon wasn’t quite sure what exactly had happened to the mangled security guard in front of him to produce such results. His chest, split open down the middle, looked as if some blade had vivisected him on the spot. It revealed his still functioning organs. He watched the man’s heart beat, feeling bile rise up in his throat. The man’s arms were bereft of skin and ended in bone-white claws worse than Gordon’s. His fingers comprised caricatures of sinew and tendon, much longer than they had any right to be. Atop his head was some kind of fleshy tick. Its round body replaced the man’s head and two wicked looking talons posed as its front legs. 

The smell of rot hit Gordon and even from his distance across the field he fought not to retch. The creature stumbled forward with an oblivious air, jerking forward with sheer momentum. On reflex Gordon took a step back. Already close to the metal wall behind him, that step left him nowhere to go.

Once the creature was inside the door slammed shut behind it. Gordon watched for a time as it seemed to explore its surroundings. The jerking limp of its movements made him wince with each step. It was bound to wander close enough to sense him eventually. His hiding in a corner was buying time.

He didn’t want to go anywhere near it. The smell, for one, didn’t lose its pungency with exposure. Walking roadkill, left to simmer in the sun for an ungodly amount of time. Gordon wasn’t sure what the point of it was. If there was even a point to this.

The creature let out an entirely too human groan of pain. Muffled though it might have been by the thing on top of the man’s head, it sounded pleading. Gordon’s maw opened and he could feel himself panting. He was all too aware of the thing in front of him. The fact that the human being under that… tick… was still aware enough to make pained noises. Whether or not it was Black Mesa’s doing, Gordon wasn’t sure, but they were cruel beyond belief to allow something like that to continue living. Hesitantly, Gordon took a step towards it.

That caught the thing’s attention. Gordon reared back from the brunt force of its appearance when centered on him. The shuffle it had been performing warped into a stumbling but effective run. Arms outstretched, claws begging to tear him to pieces. Zombielike. Gordon lowered himself to be on all fours, dodging out of the path at the last second. It turned around and swiped at him with surprising speed. He had to stumble backwards to avoid his own vivisection.

Guilt for what he felt he needed to do evaporated with the danger. If a person remained under the tick then they might be savable. If Gordon was careful. If it’d stop swiping at him.

Gordon found his footing and increased the space between them. As before, the creature charged him. Instinct took over. Whatever he had changed into had better muscle memory than he did. When the creature stepped close enough he didn’t dodge. Instead, Gordon put a hand to its chest and shoved it to the ground. The creature, or the man being piloted by it, garbled something incomprehensible. An appeal, terribly pained. Its claws came up to slash his arm. Gordon wasn’t quick enough to stop it before his fur became striped with his own blood. He stomped one arm under his foot and held the other against the man’s gaping chest.

There was no obvious way to remove the thing. Its talons waved at him menacingly but it refused to release its hold. Ripping it off like a bandage seemed like the worst action to take but his senses were clouding his judgement. Pain and nausea from the thing’s scent made him want to kill it. Destroy this awful, wretched thing. He was careful, though, as he positioned himself around the man. As delicately as he could with the claws, Gordon slipped his fingers under the creature’s mouth. It was feverishly hot and wet. He could feel small fangs digging into the skin of his fingers. Its talons waved up at him, unable to articulate at the joint enough to turn all the way around and impale him. His fingers continued to slide along the man’s neck until he met with the tick’s flesh, suction cupped around the man’s face. Probing, his claws broke the seal. The once writhing blender of a man underneath him stilled suddenly. A puppet with its strings cut. The tick decoupled with the man and Gordon had to grip it by its fleshy maw as it attempted to spring away from him.

It clung to life, despite having no host from which to take it. The man was dead. Gordon considered it fortunate for the both of them. Who would like to be alive, stuck in an endless scream, head twisted like a child's forgotten toy? Unseeing, empty sockets stared up at the approaching dusk and the unnatural bent to his neck was damning. Worst of all, it seemed as if the tick had been feeding off his facial flesh. Skin and muscle removed down to bone. Pockets of nothing but cartilage or supportive tissue. Yet again, Gordon almost threw up. The tick’s screams served as a good enough distraction. Gordon clenched his fist until the creature’s pus-yellow juices muddied the ground below it and its flailing had ceased. They were delicate on their own. The soft skin yielded easily to his claws and it was satisfying to pop them. Easy. He dropped the tick, sending a departing glance to where he had mangled its own face. Gordon stepped back over to the other man and clumsily felt for a pulse. Just in case. While still warm to his touch, the man was dead. Gordon could feel his teeth protest as he clenched his jaw.

No time to mourn the stranger as the door opened yet again. His captors would not be sated with just one show of carnage. Once more a voice rang across the ribboned walls; that voice which had not seventy-two hours ago instructed him to unclench his fist for the blood pressure test and now seemingly sought to turn that pulse nil.

“Recycle. Unit test two. Neutralization.”

Lured this time by the scent of carnage and Gordon’s open wound, two more tick-headed people rushed him. Another in a security guard uniform and the other in more civilian wear. A skirt, and an oversized, mudstained hoodie. Short. Feminine. Dread managed to find its way into the swirling vortex of his conscious thoughts. A woman. A civilian. And he would kill them. Either that, or they’d tear him apart.

Now that he knew the host wouldn’t live without the ticks, his target would be their heads. Gordon took the initiative this time. He lowered himself onto all fours and lunged at the larger of the two. With his own claws extended, he forced its arms back against its chest. It left a rather unsavory option but he heard the shuffle sprint of the smaller creature closing the distance. The flesh rot stench coming from the creature under him made this no easier. Gordon opened wide and snapped his jaws around the fleshy tick. It popped like a swollen pimple. Thick, yellow fluids splashed his face and coated his tongue. It took all of Gordon’s will not to throw up. The taste was only comparable to sucking on an old penny. Metal, tangy, with a mixed undertone of every awful thing it had ever encountered. He ripped the limp tick off the man’s head, jumping away from the approaching threat. The tick tumbled from his mouth after a moment. Gordon had to repress the urge to grind it under his foot.

Soft, pathetic sobs reached his ears. They strained forwards, pointing towards the civilian. The host. The creature. Whoever it had been. It hiccuped a warbling, low cry. Reminiscent more of someone of a child that had scraped its knee, not one tortured to attack him. All it was missing was the snotty sniff and stiff upper lip. Still, it was enough that Gordon hesitated. The creature turned on a dime and raked its claws down his chest. His skin parted like wet tissue paper, striped with his own blood. This time Gordon didn’t allow himself to think about it. His left claw struck out. The tick shredded under his claws but the momentum, struck like a baseball bat, caused the creature to crunch against the redstone walls. If the swipe hadn’t killed it, that must’ve.

Gordon stood there, panting and snarling at the empty air. While soothing to his sweat-clicked back, the air burned his exposed wound. The slices on his arm had already scabbed up and it seemed that the shallow lines in his chest weren’t far behind. He might be so unlucky as to get infected from them. A bitter thought.

Commotion came from the observation deck. Footsteps, and animated conversation. Gordon glanced up with rapt attention before he had even fully processed the source of the disturbance. Another figure blotted out the light. Tall, drab, a pencil-neck but for the sharp cut of a hairline. Timeless navy blues. He held a briefcase, dangling from his wrist like a chain and ball.

Gordon felt his veins peak and splinter with ice. Some primal kernel in his screaming brain-- stronger now that he’d been rearranged-- howled. _Predator_. From a million eons in the past, Gordon saw a shadow split across the primeval savannah. Only ghosts of a reedy voice, an eye like winter, shook some inner, simian remnant of him.

The door that had released the creatures opened once more. Gordon spun around and snarled at it, releasing the pent-up fear that had wormed its way inside. None of the creatures from before emerged. In the ensuing confusion of the tall man’s appearance, Gordon hoped, a seed of chaos had been sown. He lowered onto all four limbs and bolted for the open door. There was no backward retreat unless he wished to rot with the corpses.

Gordon spared no speed to observe what he ran headlong into. It was dark. The smell of rotting wood and mildew was overpowering even the decay scent. The moon hadn’t risen enough to light the night sky but he found that the lack of light didn’t matter much. All there was to see was a wooden hallway that bent a sharp left. With nothing more that the empty arena behind him could offer, Gordon tumbled inside. His clawed feet against the wooden floor was an uncomfortably loud sound in the otherwise silence of this small space. He merely turned the corner, though he might as well have blinked himself into another world.

Grass, yellow but alive, covered the sandy dirt. Trash dotted the landscape in haphazard, scattered piles. Cardboard, styrofoam, the typical assortment of human inconsideration. To his left was a red brick building with white trim. The multiple stories held empty windows. There looked to be a large space built into it where someone might be able to park. Some kind of vine had taken over the wall and was steadily climbing to the roof. Beyond it was a dead tree, obscuring the view of an identical building. Apartments, maybe. As Gordon stepped further into this small place suburbia engulfed him. Opposite the brick apartments stood a pale house like a totem, backed by a smattering of others. Decay’s grim hand touched them all. More vines, and paint stained yellow, or flaking off in places. Beyond this a high wooden fence rose and blocked his view of sights beyond. Red roof tiles and chimneys to blot out the sky. There were even broken street lights. The place looked old. Long abandoned to the reclamation of nature. Gordon took another step forward and startled as he stepped on something cold. Underfoot was a splintered sign, orange acrylic over sheet metal, cracked and weathered. Lettering bold as brass ran twisted over the peeling paint. With a claw uncertain of its own precision, Gordon flattened down the faded inscription. If it were Wheel of Fortune he wouldn't have been able to guess, no matter the prize sum. And yet his blood, stretched thin across longer hairier limbs, ran cooler still.

_R V N L M._


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We don't go to Ravenholm.

Exhaustion sunk its claws into the Gordon Freeman-- what must still have been Gordon Freeman-- as his feet dragged through pockets of dying grass. His unhurried exploration netted few results aside from the looming warehouses closing in on him.

He expected confrontation from the start. Fighting in an arena of his own choosing, even if the opponents remained the same. Instead, it was empty. A stray or wild dog crooned somewhere amid the alleys.

Gordon almost felt like joining in, if only to boast his own survival. That he was here. That some organ, foreign and twisted inside him, still pumped blood. He wanted to join in, he realized. Only fear stopped him. It was a lethal idea, like every other he had encountered with this valley of death somewhere in, still, somehow, New Mexico.

He slunk into a warehouse on his left. Its sheet metal exterior reminded him of a tin can. Decades of chemical treatments clung to the walls and scarcely covered up the other scents. Lumber. Human sweat. Rot, both flesh and plant.

Gordon didn’t care much to speculate on the history of a place he would be resting at only momentarily. The open space of the floor was broken up by a staircase and an obvious mound in the corner. Moonlight straining in from the windows provided little in terms of detail but it looked as if the mound was a pile of woodchips, swept there to be discarded later. A rather auspicious pile, but Gordon wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth.

It wasn’t large enough to lay out on, nor did Gordon relish in the thought of the backache that would follow. The newest part of his psyche spoke up again. A warmer, heeder instinct that cloyed his reasoning when it commanded. Often it was damnably right. It commanded a simple enough idea that Gordon’s limbs were moving as he processed it; that he should sleep as a dog does. A compact ball of fur and flesh. He settled in on top of the pile, curling up so his tail covered his snout and gave him just the slightest respite from the smell of decay.

The pile sunk under his weight. It had less give than he had imagined and the chips dug into his furred limbs. Comfortable enough. However, the smell of rot never evaporated. In fact, it only seemed to grow stronger the longer Gordon lingered. His restless shifting atop the pile only aggravated it.

Disgust and frustration gnawed at his desire to settle down until it snapped like a frayed wire. Gordon pushed himself up to stand and some of the woodchips slipped away under his paw.

Outlined in the strained moonlight sat an arm, thrown haphazardly over a torso, as if the corpse were hugging itself for comfort. A combination of age and the low light turned the skin into something utterly foriegn. It melted away like meat from shortribs and the stench exploded like a dirty bomb.

Gordon scrambled to stand, inadvertently uncovering more of the pile. The firm material under the wood chips was patently obvious at this point but still Gordon grappled with the realization. A dozen or more bodies festering, rotting, coagulating in the corner with the wood termites. 

His ears pricked as a noise from the corner of the warehouse caught his attention. Something was there. From the corner opposite to him from under the stairwell that had garnered no interest came a wet dragging noise. As if someone was pulling a bag burdened with freshly laundered clothes.

A moan of pain cut the rank air. _Skrrr._ The dragging noise persisted, grating on Gordon’s canid ears like a blade on bone. A set of hands, desperately seizing nothing, followed by the noise of the rest of the body being forced to follow suit. One by one gyrating forward like an unstable Jenga tower, built with knock-off human. What once was a head reared itself into an errant stream of moonlight.

That baptizing white light felt sepulchral as the collage of horror shambled his way. It clung together like a puppet on strings, tendons stitched through meat peeled like rotten fruit. If the aim of such an infestation were to hold the host together, Gordon thought, this experiment against nature had failed miserably.

He could scarcely believe whatever it was was still _alive_. Pity and revulsion churned in his animal gut. He could leave it to rot and die as some cruel creator intended. There was no need for him to confront the creature, yet he couldn’t convince himself to leave. Too much cruelty in inaction. He would make it quick, then.

Gordon met the creature before it had a chance to pull itself any further along. He took a deep, steadying breath. His thoughts returned to hours earlier. The taste of the thing, hot and rancid on his tongue. How its puppeted body gave out so easily. Gordon lifted his paw, hesitation for what he was about to do bleeding away by the second. The body of the tick splattered under his foot as he stomped it. He did not relish in the way its body crunched underfoot, folding and popping like a soda can. It screeched until he stomped it again, drenching his fur with its yellow fluids.

He could only stare at the cloying mess of almost-living things clinging to his long ankles.

“ _Baaa....Boooorrr’y.”_

That voice couldn’t have been his. Gargling and keening from his own shredded larynx. The sound of the unwitting apology and the sight of the mess he stood in dumbly churned his stomach to the point he thought he would vomit, so he stumbled outside.

***

Night took on a sharper edge. Moonlight didn't illuminate what was to be seen and hid what didn't want to be found. What shouldn’t have been. The quiet clawed at him. Every shadowed building he passed smelled like a kill house, to his imagination if not his blood-speckled snout.

Gordon felt dizzy envisioning himself as a pawn within a matrix of decay. Another body against some wall he couldn’t even see, much less divine the purpose of. One rat amidst doll houses that a careless god had decorated with the damned.

A howl speared the air, again. This time much closer than the distant cry from earlier. Another voice joined it. Not so lonely sounding this time, Gordon thought as he drew near the jagged edge of a dilapidated wood shed.

As with the warehouse, he heard them before he saw them. His ears pressed forward to strain for their approach. Nails on concrete, too many pairs to count. Gordon started a growl in his chest before the breath stuttered into nothingness. The number of eyes surrounding him created a sea of lidless, sour green. Green crowding out green; an impossible, unnatural palette. He would have heard if so many dogs were approaching. Their thunderous footsteps may as well have been war drums in the dead of the town.

It all became clear once the first hound stepped out of the shadow. No larger than a common dog, bearing all the markings of a mut. A genetic stockpile of whatever survived in a place like this. Its muzzle, flat like a pug’s, scrunched into a snarl. Just above that was a fluttering mass of eyes. When Gordon began to count another would blink open to menace him. They littered its face in places that made no sense, slanted at odd angles or outright vertical. Each blinked and rolled of its own accord.

Gordon growled again, stuttered to life like an old car. His hackles raised and every muscle in his body screamed and pulled. He could try to bluff his way through this, bluster and bare teeth as much as he wanted, but both he and the pack knew the numbers game. Turning tail now though might mean a swifter demise. They would catch him, tear into him from behind and break him faster than if he had just fought. 

The standoff broke with the first lunge. A hound from the front went for his throat, misshapen eyes dilating in the leap.

Gordon felt, more than initiated, his claws sliding along the soft, exposed underside of its throat mid-jump. Lifeblood splattered him in abstract designs. The now corpse went tumbling to the ground just beyond him, still twitching and bleeding. The ranks closed quickly around him, reassessing his worth as a prey item. A certain amount of loss was acceptable, but just how much depended on the pack.

Before the blood on his chest had a chance to cool he was assaulted again. Two this time, knowing that he could not split his attention between them. He chose the one on the left, his claws raking along its face and sending it tumbling away from him.

Claws and teeth dug into his right arm for his discretion. For a moment the weight of the hound was almost enough to force him to his knees. Despite his topheaviness, he knew that would mean death. Not that the rapid approach of more hounds, intent to take him down, didn’t spell the same fate.

Gordon’s right hand went to the creature’s flat muzzle and wrenched it open. His practice with the ticks proved fruitful as his forceful movement caught the hound by surprise. Blood and his own flesh followed in an arc with the creature as he pried it from him and threw it like a missile. The pack skidded and scrambled so as not to trip over their own packmate.

For a tense few moments Gordon could only hear his own snarling breaths and the now uncertain panting of the hounds. The moment broke as the hound he had thrown limped to a stand, drooling rivulets of blood. The other two did not so much as whine.

That was to be the deciding factor, apparently, as the hound staring down Gordon howled something quick and discordant before fleeing. The sound of nails on concrete died away as Gordon was just left with his own wounds and two new corpses.

Gordon ran. He didn’t dare follow the path set by the hounds, instead branching off at an angle. Treading further into the heart of the town. Warehouses and sparse grass gave way to single story homes and concrete. Unmanicured lawns sprawled outwards and upwards, reaching heights that would swallow Gordon whole.

A sense of intrusion lingered in every faltering step he took. Trespassing in a ghost town.

***

Gutted streetlamps sagged above him like dead trees, dragged down by their own weight. Their bulbs had long since shattered and rained glass onto the street below. The buildings lining the street sunk on their foundation. Heavy with new plant life and stripped of color, nature’s destructive wrath extended its reach even to here. Worse, perhaps, than on the outskirts.

The neighborhood Gordon stalked through ended with a loop back, forcing him to cut through a fenced-in backyard. It was a short, chainlink thing that he hopped with little trouble. The backyard was hideous. Brownish overlapping vines that looked like desiccated muscles covered the ground in patchwork swaths, leaking roots into the ground below. They all seemed to have come from the next house over. Colors its previous occupants designed peaked out under its kudzu-like trappings. 

Bandages swapped out for living tissue, an inorganic inside. Reverse mummification.

Curiosity, tempered by experience, outlined a path towards the vines’ origin point. Keeping a distance, Gordon followed them to the next house over. Leathery vines sprawled out like a family tree from the houses in the next block. Not a single leaf sprouted from them. Instead, there were countless of this plant’s fruits. Or, at least, what Gordon took as some kind of fruit. Red and round like a pomegranate, some misshapen on the ground while others dangled from porch ceilings. Some looked fit to burst.

Gordon flared his nostrils, attempting to catch any scent that wasn’t strict decay. The natural aroma of fruits fallen and split apart, for instance. Nothing. He took another step. Pangs of hunger knocked at him, boxer blows to the ribs, reverberating in the chorus of problems surely gestating within. Before he reached the pavement there was a wet crunch like someone biting into an apple. Every muscle in Gordon’s body tensed, thighs trembling to run and ears primed, seeking what to run from.

A burst of light and movement came from some distance behind the house he had been moving towards. Yellow lights, like sparks from a bottle rocket, danced in the sky almost high enough to be seen over the roof of the building. They shimmered in the night like fireflies, a soft organic glow that didn’t fade. Whatever it was sunk back to the ground and remained there. Soft and welcoming like a hearth. Gordon took a deep breath, as if he could feel the warmth of the fire just by breathing in whatever it was.

Drool gathered at the corners of his maw and dribbled into his fur. He needed to get away from whatever these plants were. Easier thought than done as that ambrosiac taste in the air promised him balms he knew must have been poison. He turned down the street and stumbled onto all fours, running until the air no longer smelled so sweet. Not far away from sheltering copses of apartment complexes, red brick marred by age.

He stopped in the shadow of one, hugged on either side by broken-in doors and fallen numbers. Further along the street were more vines. More red shapes that Gordon would need to get closer to discern. Options were becoming limited. Gordon growled to himself, inaction and the pressure of the situation weighing down on him.

Determined to find some way above the vines and their dazzling displays, Gordon ascended the staircase to the second story platform. The apartment immediately to his right gaped open; the door nowhere to be seen. He stepped inside and even his eyes couldn’t make out any details inside. Moonlight didn’t touch the inside, not beyond a few feet from the doorframe. Beyond the light, however, reflected a pair of eyes. Low to the ground. Gordon waited for the baying to start, for countless more pairs to open and blink asynchronously up at him. 

None of that happened. Whatever was staring back at him took in deep gusting breaths, scenting him. It grunted and the eyes rose from their position. Higher and higher until whatever it was towered over him. Gordon felt frozen, his muscles spasming impotently and brain bucking against a threat he didn’t even see. His boogeyman in the dark.

The fractured light revealed it, piecemeal. A thick, bullish muzzle merged into a boldly ovular head. A twin set of skin ears jutted from port and starboard, jagged. All of it hairless and borderline ghastly. Its deep set eyes locked with his and Gordon stumbled backward.

The quiet between them broke like glass. The _thing_ let out a gurgling roar, like the pressure under a fire hydrant bubbling up to an explosion. Then it stumbled forward and fell, galloping, into a charge. Claws like ruined porcelain came down mere inches onto where Gordon had been standing. Schrödinger's Gordon was absolutely dead.

Trying hard not to think of the phonetic alliteration of _vivisection_ , Gordon marveled at the entire horror of the monster’s body. Hair dotted islands far and few between on its wrinkled, purpled flesh, slick with what Gordon could only hope was mucus. Long front limbs stretched into a fistful of knives. An animal hunch tapped that prehistoric part of Gordon’s brain that had for over twenty-four hours been screaming at him to _run_. A figure, a curve, etched into the doubtless simpler brains of his forebears. It supported a bulky, far too long torso, protruding over much too short legs. Gordon thought his traitorous mind must have imagined five hairless digits on a plantigrade foot.

In one arcing motion the entire behemoth reared into the air, high over Gordon’s head. He felt like a sherpa beholding the mountain peak about to crush him. At the summit he made out a patchwork _Picasso_ of human features against the dark.

He needn’t have been the scientist he was to discern them growing out of the skull of a bear. Like fungus, not flowers. Gordon froze in simian terror. Where one perverted strain of life stopped and the other began were too difficult to tell; parts of different puzzles mixed senselessly with no responsibility for the inevitable outcome.

 _I don’t want to fight_ , some bespectacled university graduate within him screamed. All Gordon heard was the terrified wheeze of breath escaping between his fangs.

From left field a great paw swept in, intending to batter him around like a toy. The paralysis around his knees failed just in time for him to duck beneath the universe’s malice, but Gordon should have known by then that God didn’t play fair. Hard-won breath shotgunned out of the barrel of his muzzle as the other paw found his ribs, and squarely so.

Fear pulsed hotly through his blood as he struggled to catch his breath. Retreating brought him closer to the wall, backing him into a literal corner. The thing’s mouth opened in a noiseless roar once more. Crooked and yellow teeth stared back at him like a forest of rotting pikes.

Gordon lashed out impulsively, swiping his claws up the underside of the creature’s chin and muzzle. Flesh parted with no resistance at all. Bulbous sacks of fat sagged through the gaping wounds. He had no time to revel in this retaliation before twin weights slammed onto his shoulders and forced him onto his back.

The concrete floor under him was cold, a startling contrast to the heat above him. Those massive paws weighed his shoulders to the floor like pins for a butterfly. Its maw gaped above his face, splattering him with a mixture of saliva and blood that dripped from its muzzle.

Death stared him back in the face through the eyes of his beastly counterpart. It opened its jaws and Gordon saw back into its throat. His entire world became swallowed up by that infinite redness as it lowered its jaws around his face. Each tooth dug past his fur into a needlepoint pressure on his skull.

Gordon flailed uselessly, arms and legs spasming incongruently. No finesse to his movement, all desperation and cloying fear. 

A howl interrupted the subdued cadence of their struggle. Before the echo of the first cry died, a second joined, then a third and fourth in discordance. The hounds, once more stalking him. It took Gordon and his would-be killer both by surprise, the moment dangling in the air like a clay pigeon. Brittle, and waiting to be shattered. Gordon acted first.

His hind limbs worked in unison to bunch under the creature’s stomach and kick, almost disemboweling the thing with his claws. It groaned with pain, stumbling off of its prey and swaying on its hind legs.

 _Plop_ went the blood as it pooled, spilling out in globlets with each beat of the monster’s heart. It groaned again, this time softer, wounded.

He flinched as it slammed back down onto all fours once more, sure that his fate was sealed. Instead, he watched in muted awe as the creature retreated down the stairs. It was awkward on its four misshapen limbs, but fast enough that Gordon blinked and missed seeing the direction it turned. Despite the danger the hounds presented, Gordon could do little except lay there with his erratic heartbeat. A looming sense of danger could wait.

He pushed himself up into a sitting position, face cradled in his hands, and waited for another flash of teeth. Another sting of pain as his flesh and fur gave way under another vicious thing’s intent.

Gordon’s rest remained undisturbed. His heartbeat eventually evened out to the rhythmic pitter-patter that his anxiety would allow. Not calm, but peace of mind was far from obtainable in this place. Eventually Gordon braced a hand against the wall behind him and pushed himself back into a standing position. He entered the bear’s den with a pounding headache. The darkness welcomed him into its cool embrace.

Unidentifiable shapes rose into jagged pillars in his peripherals. An empty window frame blew cool, fresh air into the otherwise stagnant space. Moonlight pooled underneath it invitingly.

Gordon stepped across the space like a man haunted, footsteps featherlight. As if the room held more hidden dangers lurking just in the shadows. He stepped into the light and peered outside. Below was an abyss of plantlife; red and glistening in the moonlight. Vines and pods woven together to break his fall should he need it. Across was a jagged trap of a window. Shards of glass hung stubborn onto the frame and created the illusion of teeth. Just another hungry mouth Gordon was forcing himself towards.

He almost backed out. Faced whatever combined fate the hounds and that beastly creature had in store for him.

Instead he forced himself out of the window, perched like a gargoyle prepared to take flight. His nails dug into the wood of the frame. A vice-like grip that had less to do with stability than the bile rising in his throat. Then he leapt. An endless moment of freefall and then he was tumbling through the other side, small parts of himself remaining on the glass. He hit the floor hard, rolling helplessly. A noise from behind had him on his feet before his head stopped spinning. Tearing through the identical living room and crashing down the stairs head over tail.

***

A long defunct _EXIT_ sign tessellated within his peripheral. Broken glass cracked as he pulled himself up by the frame of the emergency door.

The sight before Gordon phased into view like jumping colors on a faulty old box television set. Vines nestled around the door and spread out over the apartment lot in a dazzling array. They were heavy with more than just fruit. Flowers the color of exposed muscle bloomed around him, massive enough that he could curl up in their center. Their grisly plumage was heavy with pollen. The smell of decay was staggering. Multiplied by the dozens that must have been blooming all at the same time.

Stuck to the side of the surrounding buildings like forgotten gum were something like pitcher plants. Each a rotten brown that contrasted heavily with the bioluminescent blue of their contents. Each the size of an adult sleeping bag.

Gordon stood dumbfounded. It was as if the rainforest had set down roots, growing to disproportionate sizes to hunt prey larger than bugs and frogs. Reality crashed over him and he turned around, intending to run in the other direction. 

The hallway was a sea of flesh colored wire, like a bead curtain at the grisliest rave. Reflecting light back and swaying slightly in a breeze he didn’t feel. His eyes followed the lines upward. Stuck to the ceilings were mouths. Crude teeth surrounded the hole that the tongue slopped from. Layer upon layer to create an illusion of a bloomed rose. The same wine red.

In one such mouth struggled a man. No, Gordon corrected himself as he took in the scene, a puppet and its tick struggled. The more it writhed the more it seemed to entangle itself.

The tongue of this ceiling-mounted mouth began to retract upwards. Gordon turned away, unwilling to stomach an investigation on how the carnivorous plants fed. He could walk away all he wanted, and he did, but the high-pitched cry of the tick as its life was snuffed out still made it to his keen ears. The noises of flesh wrent from bone and the tsunami of blood that dyed the already black floor underneath a fresher shade of crimson. He kept walking.

Movement through the urban jungle became a meticulous song and dance. Its floral inhabitants covered every available surface and dusted what it couldn’t reach with more of that bright yellow pollen.

Gordon stayed low to the ground as he shuffled through the maze of plant matter. He kept to the middle where pitcher plants didn’t suspend themselves off walls and all he had to contend himself with was avoiding the flowers.

The fur on his paws picked up the pollen, dying his fur a golden yellow. He figured it better that he collected it like some kind of bumblebee than if he kicked it up and inhaled it. His previous memories of the pollen’s chemical rush came unbidden. It knocked at his door, eager to reap what had already been sown. He wondered if it was only potent just after release. If he was already fucked and he didn’t know it.

A howl, triumphant and bloodlusting, rose through the late night’s air. How the hounds had managed to catch Gordon’s scent in the miasma of rotting corpse pollen and untamed plantlife he didn’t know. Yet they did. A quick scan of his surroundings revealed no traces of them but he threw caution to the wind anyway. He didn’t have another fight in him. 

Fleeing through the maze and hoping they wouldn’t be clever enough to avoid the pitfalls seemed like his only option. If he himself didn’t get caught first. A bruised rib or two twinged as Gordon lowered himself onto four limbs. Now closer to the pollen on the ground he could smell its rot. The sweet promises that hid deadly deception.

Then he ran. He ran and didn’t look back as the excited barks closed in distance. Continued to run as he was heaving in more pollen. Enough that he had to keep himself from sneezing as it stuck to his nose. Gordon ran until the open space narrowed in front of him. An alley rife with bioluminescent mouths gaping for their next dinner. Tongues hanging down, dripping silently with ill intent.

He ran until he realized that everything was a dead end. A wall of living things that feasted on his inability to escape the city’s trappings.

Gordon had just enough time to raise an arm for the first monster dog to bite into instead of his throat. They surrounded him once more. Killing their kin had made them malicious, Gordon could feel it in the air. They were latched onto him, his scent, like a shark seeking blood through miles of water. Tuned in for a kill, and no other prey would do. Another jumped at him and he caught it by the open mouth, feeling its duller fangs slice open his palm. Drool leaked between his fingers. 

Gordon wrenched his arm out and threw the hound behind himself, where the alleyway opened into an infestation. He heard it yelp in surprise as something grabbed a hold of it and then listened to it scream as the plants played with their food.

The last two hounds leapt at him then. He sent one sprawling with a well-placed kick into the center of one of those flowers. Its coat was stained yellow from its tumble and Gordon watched it rise to its feet, then begin to convulse violently. Froth stained its muzzle, every eye open wide. It ran into a wall at full speed, turned, then seemed to reorient itself. Running straight into another underpass. The creature didn’t even make a noise as it was hoisted up by the scruff into an awaiting mouth.

The other went for his arm. Weighed down on both sides now, Gordon could do little else except take a knee. It was the moment the first hound that attacked him had been waiting for. When its feet touched the ground it let go and went for Gordon’s throat. Not quick enough. Gordon’s jaws clamped over its skull. For an awful moment he felt phantom fangs around his own face, squeezing like a vice. Then he clenched his jaws shut and his mouth was filled with warm copper. Its bones crunched between his teeth easier than he thought and the flesh teased itself through his teeth. He shook the hound’s body violently, once, to make sure it was dead, and threw it back the way it came. 

He turned his attention back on to the last hound. Drool, pink and viscous in the moonlight, flecked from his bare teeth as he unleashed a growl. For a moment the hound met his eyes. Its teeth dug in further, then released. Gordon had made the mistake of allowing them to run and regroup before. Not again. He grabbed the hound by the side of its face and slammed it against the concrete. Once. Twice. Until its eyes closed and he could smell its blood on the ground. He had to stop himself from continuing. It was dead, he knew that, but he still wanted to keep going. Bash it open until it burst like a water balloon. 

Gordon shook himself, as if that’d dislodge the thought from his mind. He needed to move on. To continue. The buildings that loomed over him promised safety and danger in equal measure. A coin flip that he was going to have to take. He took a moment to view his surroundings, survey with ears trembling upright. Nothing stirred. Gordon took a steadying breath and prowled towards the door to one of the buildings. Vines had long since ensured the tattered remains of the bottom half of the door would remain open.

He peered inside. Relief relaxed the muscles in his shoulders. Nothing. The inside was dark, barren. The massive, stinking flowers were absent from the inside and he saw no bioluminescent glow.

With some hesitance he pulled himself into the remains of the room. Shattered remains of wood crunched underneath his paws and he saw more scattered around the room. He stood to his full height, beginning to inspect the ceiling with bile-churning dread. He hadn’t looked up. 

A tendril stuck onto his scruff. It writhed almost in response to his panicked movement. Gordon flailed a hand out, hoping to cut himself down before it tangled around his neck. Choked the life out of him. Instead his hand caught on yet another tendril. The more he moved the more he felt himself being restrained. At that point, however, reasoning had fled. Desperation fueled each kick of his legs and flex of his claws.

Black aligned in the corner of his vision, spots dancing in and out of his perception. Each panting gasp filled his lungs less and less. He stuck his snout up, hoping to bite at the thing strangling the life at him. Instead he lost vision in his right eye as the plant’s tongue eagerly stuck to his face. The short hairs on his muzzle burned in protest as he attempted to pull off. 

Red, layered plant matter encompassed what was left of his view. The ceiling was long gone, replaced with the gaping maw of death. Slowly reeling him in like a fish on a hook. Gordon kicked once, hoping without conviction that his nails would touch the ground. His lungs burned, one eye leaking every type of juice.

He could feel the brains of the hounds in his fingers like pulp. Feel their skulls under his feet. The warmth of the bear’s breath like a grave yawning over him. It was the mucus and regurgitated blood in his ears, Gordon thought, that made a sudden _CRACK_ sound as though it came from inside him and also far away. As ribbed lips fit over the squarish brunt of his long face, he thought he heard a howl too, far from there or anywhere.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The retention of humanity comes at a cost.

_SQUELCH_. Was that his bones cracking, or the world cracking around him? Liquid splattered onto his face and ran down his fur. The stink of death and decay, a maw prying apart to welcome him. Transforming from snout to plant and then somewhere in between. Blood on his tongue. Blood between his claws, tacky and old. A thousand unseen forces ripped at his fur like plucking a chicken. _Death_. Death so close he could feel it dripping down his nerves, dead electricity. Cold hands and even colder stares. It would leave him pliant for the horrors that creep into the corners of his vision. Cold replaced by hot. Too hot, humid and muggy like the inside of a panting mouth. 

A familiar voice cut through the tension of his dreams; impersonal and imperfect. The overhead announcement system rumbled out each word as if they had no connection with one another.

" _Project: Lycaon. Phase Omega. Twenty-four hours, sixteen minutes to perigee._ "

Gordon detected no harsh crackle to signal the end of the message. Instead another voice rumbled over the microphone, human but no less disaffected. 

" _Deck staff, report to C-78. Deck staff report to C-78. All transits are now offline. Mesa occlusions are in effect._ "

Awareness came as a balm. Darkness behind his eyelids, filtering out the light from somewhere in front of him. The aches and pains of his dream followed him into consciousness. His limbs don’t register as they should. Still numbed from the dream, or the overtaxation of his muscles getting their due. All he can do is listen. Survey the outside world through what little came to him.

A merry marching band, complete with wordless chorus filled the space with noise. This bubble of discordance broke only under the sound of quiet clacking and the mumble of someone voicing their annoyance. Against his own better judgement Gordon felt his isosceles ears perk, rotating toward the source of the commotion. It was his first jaunt back into awareness since apparent death. If he were dead, that was, then the afterlife was a hot, rancid thing where he would find no peace.

The strength to open his eyes trickled in with a daunting inevitableness. He’d eventually come back around to reality whether he wanted to or not. Gordon staved it off as much as he could. Unknowing was a small comfort, even if he could feel each and every individual bruise that littered his body. How they pulsed with pain to the beat of his heart. How the floor underneath him refused to yield into something warmer, or at least more comfortable.

Little by little, adjusting to the lights that stabbed into his brain with a vengeance, Gordon opened his eyes. The room around him was familiar. Chillingly so. Metal bars rose in front of him from floor to ceiling, broken up only by a door. From whence he came, he returned. A low, frustrated growl gurgled from his abused throat. It drew the attention of his voyeur. 

"Oh, nice. You’re awake. Really took your time out there, Wolfman.” 

Flat, dull affect. A voice that meandered like a drunkard before coming to a sluggish end. Gordon could almost place it, but from where eluded him. Blue and black outlined against the wall behind him, legs dangling over the edge of a box. In his hands chirped an oblong black device that the security guard then set aside. Some sort of handheld device Gordon had no patience to place. Not when his nerves frayed just by proximity with this… Thing.

No human, not even the monsters of Ravenholm, had ever exerted this type of pressure. His mere presence made Gordon want to back away, circle until he understood the threat. There was something very wrong with this man. He gave off no scent. No stink of human sweat or fear. Just a vague, saltwater tang. 

Reminiscent of breathing in an ocean breeze, mouth open to catch salt on the tongue. All in all, it had Gordon bristling in an entirely new way. Not out of fear, exactly, but an instinctual discomfort.

“Whoa. All growlin’ n’ shit. We’re on the same team. No friendly fire co-op.” 

His confusion quieted the growl in his throat and pinned his ears back. A slight head tilt and he attempted to rumble out a word.

“-hut?” 

Lupine lips did not bend to form the word properly, warping it into something more like a grunt. Muffled and almost indistinguishable.

“Yeah, this shit’s multiplayer now. I’ve uh-- I’m all about what’s going on here. Saw you try to stick it to the man by running into your death. Pretty funny for an epic fail.” 

Although Gordon could barely parse what was being said to him, he understood an insult when it was directed towards him. His fur bristled and Gordon pushed himself up to his feet. He didn’t loom over the security guard as he had every other thing he’d encountered. Even with his snout pressed against the bars they locked eyes at an even level.

“You scratch my back, I scratch behind your ears. I get back at that motherfucker G-Man, and you? You get to go hog wild on these bootlickin’ boot-boys.”

Gordon’s most recent nuisance smiled at his version of a joke, all rows of dagger teeth. Whatever was so amusing about the metaphor was lost on Gordon. Nor did he know who ‘G-Man’ was and what relevance he had in the situation. His head tilted in confusion, ears perked.

“What? Plan no good? Thought you’d be all about killing some scientists.” 

Not what Gordon was confused about. He shook his head and opened his mouth. Like before, the words refused to flow with the amount of dexterity he had before. He had to feel the word out, test it in his throat and tongue, then execute.

“ _Gee-ann_ ,” he grated out. 

“G-Man? Yeah, the ‘general manager’ he calls himself. ‘Director.’ He’s nothing but titles. What about him? He’s the head honcho. Spooky lookin’ suit boy? Got this dumb… accent… like… this…” 

The slow, methodical way that was mimicked rung a bell. But only just. He remembered a man who had crouched in front of him, mulling over every word and adding unnecessary pauses. An old man. Something about… Gordon shook his head, teeth gritted as a headache sprung up. Apparently this only encouraged the security guard to keep talking. 

“Yeah, he speaks like a weirdo. It’s probably ‘cause he’s like me. A- an eldritch thingie. A real smug bitch since he’s older than me. And in his domain.”

Gordon didn’t know what to say. Everything only led to more questions. Open hostility radiated off of every word spoken, squared shoulders and a rigid posture. Words failed him and he allowed the silence between them to linger. Not for long, though. Never long enough.

“Lemme know when you’re ready. I’ll fuck some shit up and give us the chance to get outta here.”

The word ‘us’ did not escape Gordon’s notice. Were they also trapped at Black Mesa? Another experiment, more subtle than his own transformation. It would explain the unnerving feeling that permeated into his bones. 

Another question he would never be able to ask.

“So what do you say? Please? For new best friend Benry?”

Gordon needed time to chew over his words. Two was better than one, but his new ‘friend’ Benry was an unknown. Just as likely to turn teeth and claw on him than the enemy if things got difficult. But this time was not given. The smell of cooked meat, vegetables, and something distinctly artificial sweet wafted through an opening door. Gordon’s eyes darted over to Benry, looking to check his reaction. Except the man was gone. Without a word, movement, or sound.

Metal clattered against metal, a cacophony of teeth-gritting rattle. Even so, he felt salvia fill his mouth. A noise he knew, one he associated with food. Tommy was back. A bittersweet feeling; resentment for his situation and hope in the thought of food. 

“Dr. Freeman?”

Tommy’s voice almost sounds nervous as he rounds the corner. Their eyes meet and he’s offered a sunny smile. 

“Good-- Good morning, Dr. Freeman. You had us all worried there for a while! After you ran off into Ravenholm we couldn’t find you for a while. And when we did… Well, I think you know how that ended.”

Although there was no hint of it in his tone of voice, Gordon felt scolded. Like a pet that had run out through the front door the first chance it got. It warred against every other feeling. A tumultuous ocean of conflicting desires. 

Something must have slipped through as Tommy backpedals, waving his hands to gain the attention back towards himself. 

“But! I’m sure you’re really hungry, right? I have extra today so you can eat as much as you want.” 

The idea of eating as much as he wanted remained a tempting offer, despite the tumultuous headspace he found himself in. His last meal had been served to him by Tommy in a space that felt forever ago. How it could have only been a day between then and now was something Gordon struggled with. It seemed like a lifetime ago. But he nodded, rumbling what he hoped sounded like an affirmation.

That brightened Tommy’s dreary facade. He flashed what seemed to be a genuine smile, all teeth and the cheery red of his cheeks. Gordon had to bite down on bearing his teeth as well.

“How about some soup, then? I’m sure you need the fluids.”

Tommy lifted the lid off of one of the trays and Gordon’s mouth fell open as he scented it. The smell of the food was overpowering in the otherwise bland space; a concoction of cooked meats, grains, and something vegetal. Better than he remembered from before, but somehow he doubted that the cafeteria workers at Black Mesa put in any extra effort. He stepped over to the door, waiting patiently as Tommy gathered up the soup and slid it through the slot. There was a flash of Tommy’s pale hand before he quickly pulled it back.

Gordon picked up the bowl even before he heard Tommy’s retreating footsteps. The inoffensive beige of the plastic bowl looked small in his hands, nestled against his black claws. Some part of him wanted to dump the contents down his throat, heat and taste be damned. He was better than that. He had to be. Instead he walked back to the middle of his enclosure and squatted to rest on his haunches. He tipped the bowl against his mouth, struggling to avoid spilling the contents all over his front. Dirt, blood, and other things he didn’t want to think about still matted his fur. Soup wouldn’t be added to that mixture if he could help it.

“Mr. Freeman?” Tommy spoke with a lack of surety, something that pricked Gordon’s ears and drew the attention away from his task. “Maybe I could tell you a little more about this place. What we’re doing here. What-- What you’re doing here.”

Tommy didn't meet his gaze, instead looking down to where he was wringing his hands. Gordon twitched his muzzle down in numb acknowledgment, unsure what the man meant.

“It’s all to due with lunar timetables, really. Hence all the-- all the countdowns.”

Indeed some umpteenth alarm whined in the far distance, mewling like tinnitus in the background of Gordon’s fear. The only thing that seemed to quell Tommy’s nervous shame was the inertia of information he fell into like a stream.

“Really, it started with Aperture. During the Cold War, they were obsessed with mining the potential of the space race. They researched moon rocks, lunar alignments, astro-biology cycles. Even poisoned their CEO with silicon dust. As th-things went on, the focus shifted to bombs, and missiles, and when everyone realized they couldn’t just blow each other up, it shifted to, well, supersoldiers.”

Gordon couldn’t find it in himself to react. The sterile academic of last century’s world powers seemed a cruel cerebral reality compared to the bloody, furry one he was wrapped in.

“All that crazy moon stuff got shoved in the closet and forgotten about. But when Aperture went quiet and new management took over here, they dusted it off. I-I guess it wasn’t all unscientific nonsense, ha-ha.”

The scrape of rubber soles reached his ears, and the familiar scent of iron reached his nose. Gordon noticed that Tommy had chewed his lip open.

“I won’t pretend to understand it. H-hell, I‘m not sure anyone but dad does! What I do know is that we have to stabilize your condition by the time the moon is in perigee, or-- Well, o-or--...”

Gordon’s stomach attempted to twist free of its intestinal chains. Suddenly the way his brain felt stretched like silly putty inside the egg of his skull made sense. Of course the procedures had been only half-baked. As if they could snap their fingers and turn him into a monster that would last. Of course there was no sound end-game, not for the experiment. Black Mesa didn’t care if he could never be human again. If he couldn’t function as a soldier, they didn’t care if his mind turned to gray slurry and his tissues desiccated themselves into ash.

Tommy approached the door again, face the picture of painful apology, as if he’d sensed Gordon’s thoughts. Gordon found himself hating it more than if the trepid man had been callous.

“I know i-it’s not nice. I know it’s not anything you wanted. It’s not what I-- It’s not-- not what you deserve. But it’s better than the alternative, Mr. Freeman, believe me. I-I know it doesn’t seem like that right now, but you’ll see.”

The boundless pain he was in did nothing to dispel the searing desperation in Gordon’s stomach. Not a feeling that belonged to a mind which expressed itself in words; not anger, or hatred, or even mourning for himself, but a burning. A trembling impetus to survive. Gordon’s muzzle couldn’t fit through the bars but he pressed against them anyway and warbled, as though to point out the obvious would illuminate the hypocrisy with which his life was being cast away.

“ _FAAAwd’r. Nawd hyoo---Hyooooman_!”

Tommy smiled, as sadly as Gordon had ever seen him.

“Yeah. I mean, n-no. He’s not human. My dad’s-- My dad’s just something else, you know?”

Gordon’s first instinct, his MIT-graduate instinct, was to bark back _How could I know_? He had no human mouth to enunciate with, but somehow he also did know. That there were things at Black Mesa higher beyond his understanding. That monster though he was, there were so many bigger and sharper mouths in the vast dark. It was at this void that Tommy merely shrugged.

“None of this would be possible without him. The modulation of lunar radiation, the advances in gene splicing. And when his, er, counterpart from Aperture jumped ship and migrated here-- I think everyone was ready to take things into the next phase. B-But you don’t care about that.”

He didn’t care. Gordon couldn’t stand to listen. It felt like he was going deaf, ear canals tightening until the inside of his head was a vacuum. The bowl of water-gruel shimmered by his slender foot. It spilled hot broth underpad when he stomped on it and sent it spinning toward the meal door. Despite everything, the look of abject dejection on Tommy’s face nearly sparked some regret inside him, but Gordon was relieved to find the tinder was too damp.

“Please don’t be mad.” Tommy’s voice shrunk as he crouched down to collect the empty receptacle. “Dr. Walton and the other scientists. T-They’re just doing their jobs. The Mesa’s been at this for a long time. No one just leaves Black Mesa, n-not even us.”

He replaced the bowl with a glass of water. Each movement was almost humorously slow. Gordon wondered if Tommy had ever spoken to another person about what happened down here. If whoever the bear had been knew Tommy the same way he did.

“I think you met some of the rejected specimens in R-Ravenholm. Some of them have been there a long time. No one goes there, not anymore. After the Droseraceae specimen grew out of control, it-- Y-Yeah.”

Perhaps it was a kind of remorse, but the water Gordon couldn’t ignore. He pawed it close to his mouth enough to upturn the glass and half-drown trying to suck liquid down the right pipe. Tommy rubbed the back of his hand raw with a weak laugh.

“Sorry, I don’t know why you’d want to hear all of this. I just feel bad. You’re one of the first specimens to remain human after the change. Well, human enough to hold a conversation with.”

He set the plastic cup down hard enough for it to be heard by Tommy. It didn’t help him now to know that Tommy was harboring a guilty conscience over what had been done to him. Actually, Gordon realized somewhat belatedly, Tommy playing this pity party out for himself was actually infuriating. How he could dare pretend to be the victim here while he was out there, free and unchanged.

Gordon’s eyes wandered back over to the muted console game. His thoughts returned to the entity that called itself Benry and offered him his destructive path out. Tommy followed his line of vision and seemed startled to spot the black, oblong piece of plastic. That surprise melted into a burst of fear so sudden and strong that Gordon could barely believe he saw it. Especially when Tommy pocketed the device and turned to him with a blindingly bright and open smile. 

“I’ll return it to him, just keep in mind what I said, ok?”

It was already too late. Gordon made up his mind.

Tommy retrieved another plate of food to replace what Gordon had completed, but his mind wasn’t on eating. The memory of Tommy’s wrist crossing that boundary flashed in his mind. The start of a plan. 

Once more Tommy reached through the slot to retrieve the cup. But Gordon was faster. His hand wrapped around Tommy’s wrist and he pulled. Whatever else Tommy held clattered loudly to the floor. He could feel Tommy pull away, startled and likely hurt from Gordon’s claws digging into his flesh with desperation.

“Mr.- Mr. Freeman--” Tommy’s voice was rife with confusion and panic. He almost sounded hurt. Gordon refused to think about it.

Somehow Tommy was stronger than he looked. Strong enough that Gordon nearly lost his grip when Tommy yanked himself back. Gordon braced himself against the metal of the door and pulled at the unbudging weight. Panic started to well up. He couldn’t fuck this up, that wasn’t an option here. With more strength than he thought necessary, Gordon yanked Tommy’s wrist. A dull thud rang out through the room followed by a whimper of pain. He couldn’t see what part of Tommy slammed against the door, but it worked. The resistance lessened and Gordon pulled yet again. Another thud. Almost loud enough to cover the crack of a bone breaking. Almost.

The resistance stopped. Everything went quiet. Gordon’s frantic panting was the only noise in the room save for the judgmental hum of the fluorescents above. He let go of Tommy’s wrist and heard the fabric rustle as he slumped to the floor. Suddenly, the meager contents of his stomach rebelled. Watery bile spilled between his clenched teeth and dribbled onto the floor. The rage he felt slipped out of him and left a hollow, cold feeling in his chest. 

Before his nervous breakdown could take hold, Gordon felt more than heard the feeling of suddenly displaced air. His eyes snapped to the location only to find Benry staring down at Tommy’s body.

“Wow. Kinda fucked up,” Benry intoned, “The old man’s going to be pissed with you, you know that?”

As if to prove that point, Benry picked up Tommy’s limp hand. Only to let it fall with a wet noise of flesh against concrete. 

“Yikes. Guess we’re doing this then, huh?” 

And with that, Gordon watched as the door to his prison opened outwards. It shoved Tommy out of the way like a discarded doll. But Gordon barely has the presence of mind for that. Not when he stepped out of the cell to the chorus of every door in the facility slamming open at once with perfect synchronicity. 


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Friends in unlikely places.

The facility around Gordon did not devolve into absolute chaos the way he thought it would have. Screams of the dying and damned came to him in piecemeal echoes, bouncing down unknown corridors and reaching him begrudgingly. Not that he gave himself much time to listen. He was free, technically. His freedom coming at the cost of his captor’s life, and perhaps the lives of everyone in the facility. It wasn’t a pleasant feeling like he had hoped.

The ember of rage that nestled deep into his heart sputtered ineffectively, throwing off sparks that died before he could kindle them. Fear and worry dampened his primal desires to wreak vengeance. If what Tommy and Benry said was true, then he’d lose himself to becoming a slobbering beast. And the only people who knew how to stop that were being destroyed by their own creations.

Gordon inched through the now open door of his enclosure, careful to avoid stepping on Tommy’s slowly cooling corpse. He could see him clearly now. The shoulder was wrenched at an odd angle, likely having been pulled out of the socket. But that hadn’t been what killed him. Tommy’s neck bent at a sickening angle. The outline of his spine protruded against the skin, looking fit to burst through. Benry watched his approach curiously, as if he wasn’t sure what to make of him.

“You uh- Y’gonna stand around all day or are we prison breaking this shit?”

Right. Finally stepping into the main body of the room, Gordon looked down the hallway that Tommy had always come from. Its dizzying length terminated with a metal door, forced open. Just beyond that Gordon could see a further stretch of wide hallway. Rows of metal doors similar to his own gave the impression of an ant colony. One tunnel with many more branching off. Gordon looked away, mentally shuddering. The thought of each door hiding a creature like himself was unsettling to the very core of his being.

At the opposite end of the hallway, some meters away, was a hole in the wall. A panel of buttons underscored by a key hole gave the barest impression it was for an elevator. The scuffed concrete shaft did nothing to affirm his guess and he wasn’t going to venture any closer. Not when uncertainty lurked in the door between him and it. So Gordon’s gaze turned back to the dizzying stretch at the opposite end.

He could’ve spent an hour studying what came ahead of him if not for the insistent push that sent him over the threshold. Benry’s hands, even through his fur, were icy. Gordon’s fur fluffed out involuntarily, both in embarrassment and from the chill. He stepped further out into the hall. His nails clacked against the concrete floor like heels, making his presence so much larger than he felt. When nothing jumped out to tear out his throat he set upon making it down the hall.

The doors immediately to the left and right of his own opened into a dark room. Featureless and barren. Likely awaiting their next inhabitant. The next set were similar. Gordon’s slow and cautious pace was interrupted by his acquired shadow. Benry walked ahead of him with his hands in his pocket, no longer standing just a few paces behind Gordon.

“What’re you creeping around for? This is the human experimentation wing. Just you n’ Coomer n’ Bubby.”

Two names he’d never heard before. Unknowns that Benry was apparently comfortable with, considering his relaxed posture. Gordon growled and stopped suddenly, catching Benry’s attention. He grated out the word. Practice lent his beast tongue no more elegance.

“ _Hyyyaa…..Hyooon..._?”

Benry gives him an odd look, tilting his head like he doesn’t understand the single spoken word.

“Uh, yeah. They’re humans. Kinda. Upgraded though. Been grinding those science levels. Elite boss science guys.”

Unsurprisingly, no enlightenment came from Benry’s explanation. Gordon was no closer to knowing if they were friend or foe than before. Yet he pressed on nonetheless. There was no telling for how long he would have this chance. Before Black Mesa’s military rallied, or ‘The G-man’ found what remained of his son. If he was anything like Benry then Gordon shuddered to think about the consequences.

Benry began to move again and it was all the signal he needed to be shaken from his thoughts. They moved through the hallway with an increased sense of expediency. As if Benry had read his worried thoughts. 

Two doors before the end Gordon caught onto the mutter of conversation. Two men holding a hushed conversation. Perhaps an argument from the harshness of one’s tone and the conciliatory nature of the other’s. It was a siren’s call for Benry, who immediately turned on a heel and stepped into the room like he was invited.

The conversation ceased immediately, replaced with a round of friendly greetings. For a moment he felt stuck. Benry was to be his guide and protector, somewhat. He could leave without him at this moment. Continue through the facility unaided by whatever powers Benry had up his sleeve. It almost sounded better than dallying and meeting whoever was hidden just beyond that open door.

Ultimately it was no choice at all. Benry was a necessary part of the plan. Where he went, Gordon unwillingly followed. He crossed the threshold of the door and was cast into the warm green glow of the room. It resembled something out of an old gothic fiction. The main centerpiece was a massive tube containing green liquid. Around the tube dozens of terminals were huddled under its glow. Harsh, synthetic lights beamed from the top and bottom. They became dulled as they traveled through the apparently viscous liquid. 

Suspended in the middle of the tube was what looked to be an older man. A halo of suspended white hair framed his angular face. It almost detracted from the fact that he was entirely naked. Various tubes wormed their way into his body, draping down from the top. They reminded Gordon of strings. Another one of Black Mesa’s marionettes.

He wasn’t the only unfamiliar figure in the room. Another man stood next to the glass. His attention was solely on it; palms pressed to the glass with a sense of reverence. The already stout man was dwarfed by what he seemed to adore. A gowl rose unbidden from Gordon’s throat before he had even processed what caused it. The stout man was dressed in a lab coat. The socks and sandals gave the impression of casualty, but that starched white set Gordon’s blood to boiling. It didn’t seem to bother Benry, who was tapping on the glass like the man in the tube was a particularly interesting fish at the aquarium. 

Before Gordon had time to let his mind assign Benry to traitor, the scientist raised a hand in greeting.

“Hello, Gordon! Don’t let my appearance deceive you. I may be dressed like a Black Mesa bootlicker, but dear Bubby here can attest to that not being the truth at all.”

Bubby, who was apparently the man in the tube, crossed his arms upon being addressed directly. His sharp frown matched his sharp, almost malnourished features. Bubbles rose as he murmured something not loud enough to go through the liquid and glass. Although the lab coat wearing man nodded his head.

“Quite right, professor Bubby. You’ve probably seen me around, Gordon. Or thought you did. They were likely my clones! You see, human cloning is the creation of a genetically identical copy, or clone, of a human. The term is generally used to refer to artificial human cloning-,” the sound of palms slamming against the glass cut the tirade short. 

He resumed once more after clearing his throat.

“Apologies. My name is Dr. Harold Coomer. You know our mutual acquaintance-- security chief Bopper.”

Gordon sent a confused look to Benry. Benry returned it with a shrug and returned to childishly smudging the glass. 

“We appear to be in quite the tricky situation. From what information I can gather from my clones, it appears that every door in the Black mesa facility has been opened! You wouldn’t happen to know why that occurred, would you Gordon?”

The stout scientist looked up at him with a puppyish innocence. Something that didn’t fit quite right with the knowing way in which he had asked. Gordon opened his maw, intending to mumble something intelligible and hopefully be let off the hook. Benry beat him to it with his usual bullshit.

“Yeah- I turned on hacks. Set all doors to uh, open sesame. Wolfman wanted to get out and I never leave a gamer bro hangin’.”

Dr. Coomer nodded, all at once understanding and accepting what was explained. 

“We should get going before the military catches wise. Yet, before that happens I believe we have a little bit of time to discuss your current condition, Gordon.”

All eyes seemed to turn to Gordon at once, as if his wolfish nature was the elephant in the room. Dr. Coomer wrung his hands, almost looking distraught. He opened his mouth to speak but apparently thought better of it and shut it once more. Discomfort prickled at Gordon’s skin. His fur fluffed out as if that would shield him from the sudden onset of seriousness. 

Words finally breached the silence, hesitant and apologetic.

“Well, your condition needs to be stabilized by the lunar event or I’m quite afraid that you’re literally going to lose your mind! The last few experiments barely retained their human consciousness. You’re quite the breakthrough, Gordon, but your DNA is still altering itself at a rapid pace. If we don’t stop the recombination before it expands past the blood-brain barrier, you’ll lose what sense of humanity you still have left.”

Silence reigned after that statement. Gordon stood in disbelief, blinking stupidly at the scientist in front of him. The fact that things could get any worse for him left him dumbfounded. He was left finding that the latest layer of stone wasn’t quite bedrock. He could go lower. And he would, seeing as how he had killed one of few people willing to help him.

Sudden guilt rose in his throat. Tommy. God. He should have listened to what the man was saying instead of stewing in his own guilt. A low keen slipped from between his teeth. The sound was more wounded than he had ever heard before, especially coming from himself.

“But- ah, don’t worry Gordon,” Dr. Coomer was quick to restart the sputtering heartbeat of the conversation, “we should be able to find out what the process was and perform it on our way out! As long as we get a move on, the surface should only be a few hours away.”

Dr. Coomer’s hand hovered over the keypad of the nearest computer before typing in a rapid sequence of letters and numbers. A hiss of air signaled the decompression of the tube. The steady _glug_ of liquid being drained resounded throughout the room, emptying it in less than a minute. The figure that was once suspended, _Bubby_ , stood on unsteady legs. He fidgeted with the tubes attached to his body before they all released at once, corresponding with the glass of the tube ascending into the ceiling. 

Coomer was quick to shed his outer lab coat, revealing a hawaiian shirt underneath. It was slid over the shoulders of the still slick man, dwarfing him comically. Gordon felt like a voyeur watching the comfortable, personal way in which they interacted. 

He turned away and exited back into the hallway, shaking off the feeling of being an outsider. No second set of footfalls sounded off after him. Benry must still be watching the two of them. Perhaps catching up. A curious noise caught his ears. Muffled through the walls between him and it, identifying the source was a pointless endeavor. But it sounded almost like the click of an elevator. Its velvety purr when the suspension ropes dragged it along. 

Gordon followed the direction of the noise. It was in the same direction he had already begun walking. The only way forward. He cleared another flanking of doors before the hallway terminated in a sharp left turn. Heavy blast doors had, before Benry’s influence, separated the different experimental wings. Now the only separation between them was levels of chaos. Gordon smelled the bile and blood far before his eyes registered the scene before him.

Ravenholm’s relative peace was borne from the ability of the monsters within it to have their own territory. When confined, cramped, and suddenly let loose… Well, Gordon was unsurprised to see a body wedged against the door. Standard issue pistol in hand and a hole through the scientist’s head. The hallway in front of him had likely been an exact copy of the one he had just emerged from. Now, innards and viscera decorated the walls and hung from the ceiling like deranged party streamers. It would be an impossible game to guess where the human flesh stopped and the monster guts started. The linoleum had criss-cross patterns of claws to marr the surface. Drag marks where scientists had run into the hallway only to be hunted down and dragged back to become a meal.

Only a single tick-headed scientist remained in the hallway. The freshness of the kill was pungent; their still pink organs oozing ichorishly thick blood onto the floor below them. It didn’t seem to notice him, too far down the hall to have heard his muted approach. But Benry’s loud, booted steps drew its attention as he rounded the corner as well. It lifted its head, as if scenting the air. Before it could start its gambling sprint or scream in bloodlust, another blessed distraction appeared.

The elevator at the far end of the room opened with a soft chime. Deafeningly loud in the once-quiet peace. Now, a dinner bell to every monstrosity. Soldiers suited from head to toe in heavy combat armor piled out of the elevator, spilling out in a tide of bodies. Predictably, all hell broke loose.

Hounds bayed in unison. Human groans became a discordant choir. Something screamed in joyful violence. A gunshot rang out, dropping the tick-headed person like a sack of rocks. What came next was like an avalanche. Semiautomatic gunfire peppering into the wave of bodies that spilled from the open doors. Gordon watched in stupefied horror as monsters, familiar and not, pushed past their mowed-down counterparts. Bullet ridden bodies became mounds for the hounds to launch from. Meat shields that squid-faced quadrupeds raised while charging.

The soldiers at the end of the hallway never stood a chance. Once their clips ran empty the balance flipped. It was hard to feel a sense of satisfaction at their screams. Especially when Coomer and Bubby caught up, the former muttering a “my goodness” at the carnage. Bootboys though they may have been, Gordon held no personal judge against them. Not these nameless, faceless humans.

Everyone stood in awed silence for a few moments, drinking in the sight before them as humans became nothing more distinguishable than scraps of meat. The feeding frenzy reminded Gordon of shark week documentaries he’d put on while pulling another all-nighter. No unnecessary cruelty, just the most efficient ways to rip and tear.

Coomer spoke up after a minute, his voice hushed.

“Well, boys. I don’t think that’s a viable exit anymore. Shall we try the other elevator?”

There was no other elevator. Just a gaping hole that went down to nowhere. Plummeting far enough that the overhead fluorescents didn’t breach the darkness. Gordon wasn’t exactly keen to figure out how long he’d fall before hitting the floor.

He hooked a claw into Coomer’s belt loop as he turned away, stopping the man from turning back from where they came. Coomer’s voice was admonishing this time. As if he were scolding an unwieldy child instead of what was supposed to be a genetically engineered super soldier.

“Come now, Gordon. I understand that we just witnessed an awful massacre, but now is not the time to be stubborn.

Gordon couldn’t express what a bad idea the other elevator was. Not with words, anyway. He let out a soft whine and pinned his ears back. An action which warranted a scoff from the once-quiet Bubby. Clearly he wasn’t going to get his point across. When Coomer pulled away again Gordon let him go, but not without sending another glance back to the feasting. Of course they couldn’t fight their way through it, but at least there was a chance. A small glimmer of hope that Benry could do something. Anything.

He followed after the group, keeping to the back. Internally, he told himself that he was just watching out for an ambush. Threats from behind. It was a difficult lie to sell, even to himself.


End file.
